美国国家公共电台 NPR Conn. Governor Defends Likening The NRA To 'A Terrorist Organization'

 

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Guns and gun safety are very much in the news again this week. This morning, the Justice Department moved forward with a process to ban bump stocks. That's the accessory that enables guns to fire like automatic weapons. Yesterday, Florida Governor Rick Scott signed into law several gun measures that fell short of what student activists¹ wanted in the wake of the shooting in Parkland, Fla., but still represented a victory for gun control advocates in a state that has seen few of them. And perhaps because of the momentum² created by this latest mass shooting, political leaders elsewhere have gotten bolder in their demands and public statements.

Case in point, the mayor of Hartford, Conn., Luke Bronin, called for state lawmakers to remove mentions of the NRA from the state's laws, for example, as designated providers of required safety training. The governor of Connecticut, Dannel Malloy, then weighed in to agree and said the NRA had, quote, "in essence become a terrorist organization," unquote, which as you might imagine did not go down well with the NRA. We thought we'd call the governor to ask him about this, and he's with us now. Governor, thank you so much for being with us.

DANNEL MALLOY: Sure. Great to be with you.

MARTIN: And I should mention that you have also, sadly, lived through a mass shooting at a school when you were in public office in 2012 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. So you are very well aware of this issue. But a terrorist organization? Tell us more of what you meant by that.

MALLOY: Well, I said that they act like a terrorist organization. And if you look in Webster's, you'll see that a terrorist organization uses fear to affect its goals. And what organization in America has used fear better than the NRA? I mean, I have put out a list of statements that their highest leadership have made publicly over the years. I mean, this really is an organization that is devoid³ of courage when it comes to making our nation safer.

Ninety-seven percent of Americans believe in universal background checks. In fact, a large percentage of Americans think we have universal background checks. But the only reason we don't have them, quite frankly⁴, is the NRA and the politicians that they have purchased in Washington, including our own president, President Trump⁵, towards whose benefit they spent $30 million.

MARTIN: But a terrorist organization uses fear through violence. And you have said in the past you said, look, you want to make - you're giving an example of the kind of tactics that they employ, for example, boycotts⁷. Well, you know, the Montgomery bus boycott⁶ was a boycott. Progressives boycott people all the time. That's not the same as killing⁸ them.

MALLOY: But if you're taking advantage of those deaths, if you use that in your marketing⁹ or your argument that people need more guns in the nation. I'm not accusing them of having pulled the trigger, although, quite frankly, in some of these cases, I think there is blood on their hands because they have fought for guns - they have fought against gun safety for so many years. They've even changed their position, you know. And I know that the NRA once advocated a universal background checks. They've changed that position. In 1999, their leader said that teachers shouldn't have guns in schools. But now they market that as a way to do a have a bait-and-switch argument about what would make America safer. You just can't stand by and listen to the arguments they make and not understand that they are in fact preying¹⁰ on people's deepest fear.

MARTIN: OK. well, let's set aside the irony¹¹ of the NRA decrying¹³ name calling. At a conference in Washington, D.C., a couple of weeks ago, their spokespersons claimed that, say, the news media love mass shootings because they're good for ratings and said a number of other things that many people, and not just journalists, found deeply offensive. So let's set aside...

MALLOY: I just want to...

MARTIN: Go ahead...

MALLOY: Let me stop you for a minute. So the reality is the NRA is winning. The reality is the tone they take, the arguments they make, have in fact prevented there being universal background checks. The tone and the arguments they make have actually led to legislation that President Trump signed that makes it more difficult to discover who has mental illness and therefore should be on a no-purchase list.

MARTIN: The question I was going to ask you is when one - that's a debatable point. Also one might argue that it's political contributions. That's the argument that you made earlier. The question I had for you is, if you decry¹² that level of discourse¹⁴, why engage in it yourself?

MALLOY: What I'm saying is they are extremely successful at what they do, and quite frankly, pointing out that at times they do act like terrorists. Let's go back to one of the examples. They have threatened individuals who want to sell safe gun technology with boycotts. Now you can say that that's a fair thing to do. But when in fact it prevents a technology from being introduced in the United States, that would prevent a 2-year-old child from finding a gun in their mother's pocketbook in Walmart and killing her, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. We really have to have a reasonable discussion about these issues. But this is not an organization that has any desire to have a reasonable discussion about those.

MARTIN: That's Governor Dannel Malloy of Connecticut. He's a Democrat¹⁵. He was kind enough to join us today from his offices in Hartford. Governor, thank you for speaking with us.

MALLOY: Thank you.

1 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 momentum   

n.动力，冲力，势头；动量

参考例句：

• We exploit the energy and momentum conservation laws in this way.我们就是这样利用能量和动量守恒定律的。
• The law of momentum conservation could supplant Newton's third law.动量守恒定律可以取代牛顿第三定律。

3 devoid   

adj.全无的，缺乏的

参考例句：

• He is completely devoid of humour.他十分缺乏幽默。
• The house is totally devoid of furniture.这所房子里什么家具都没有。

4 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

5 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

6 boycott   

n./v.(联合)抵制，拒绝参与

参考例句：

• We put the production under a boycott.我们联合抵制该商品。
• The boycott lasts a year until the Victoria board permitsreturn.这个抗争持续了一年直到维多利亚教育局妥协为止。

7 boycotts   

（对某事物的）抵制( boycott的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Their methods included boycotts and court action, supplemented by'sit-ins". 他们的主要方法包括联合抵制、法庭起诉，还附带进行静坐抗议。
• Are boycotts for other purposes illegal? 至于用于其它目的的联合抵制行动是否也是非法的呢？

8 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

9 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

10 preying   

v.掠食( prey的现在分词 )；掠食；折磨；（人）靠欺诈为生

参考例句：

• This problem has been preying on my mind all day. 这个问题让我伤了整整一天脑筋。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• For a while he let his eyes idly follow the preying bird. 他自己的眼睛随着寻食的鸟毫无目的地看了一会儿。 来自辞典例句

11 irony   

n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄

参考例句：

• She said to him with slight irony.她略带嘲讽地对他说。
• In her voice we could sense a certain tinge of irony.从她的声音里我们可以感到某种讥讽的意味。

12 decry   

v.危难，谴责

参考例句：

• Some people will decry this,insisting that President Obama should have tried harder to gain bipartisan support.有些人会对此表示谴责，坚持说奥巴马总统原本应该更加努力获得两党的支持。
• Now you decry him as another Hitler because he is a threat to the controlling interest of oil in the middle east.现在你却因为他对中东石油控制权益构成了威胁而谴责他为另一个希特勒。

13 decrying   

v.公开反对，谴责( decry的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Soon Chinese Internet users, including government agencies, were decrying the' poisonous panda. 不久，中国网民以及政府机构纷纷谴责“影响极坏的熊猫烧香”。 来自互联网
• Democratic leaders are decrying President Bush's plan to indefinitely halt troop withdrawals from Iraq after July. 民主党领导公开谴责布什总统七月后无限停止从伊拉克撤兵的举动。 来自互联网

14 discourse   

n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述

参考例句：

• We'll discourse on the subject tonight.我们今晚要谈论这个问题。
• He fell into discourse with the customers who were drinking at the counter.他和站在柜台旁的酒客谈了起来。

15 democrat   

n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员

参考例句：

• The Democrat and the Public criticized each other.民主党人和共和党人互相攻击。
• About two years later,he was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter.大约两年后，他被民主党人杰米卡特击败。