Just when you thought the momentum for gun control was exhausted, the GOP may have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Despite the public attention and support gun control received in the wake of the tragedy at Newtown, Connecticut, both houses of Congress have been less than sanguine to initiate new gun control legislation. Initially it appeared as though the NRA had sabotaged themselves with CEO Wayne LaPierre giving a surreal tone deaf press conference on arming teachers to prevent further shootings.

Gun control advocates thought they might finally have an opening. But that hope would soon be in jeopardy.

NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre’s response to the Newtown school shooting was a plan to bring more guns into schools claiming only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun. The plan was met with a mix of ridicule and skepticism but the NRA doubled down on the plan even to the point of launching an ad campaign that targeted President Obama’s children, asserting that Obama’s lack of support for armed guards at schools was hypocritical given that his children were protected by armed secret service agents.

Well this weekend we found that the NRA has one more thing in common with Richard Nixon, an enemies list.

Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre both testified before the Senate yesterday on gun regulation. Giffords made a plea for the government to act now before more die needlessly while LaPierre claimed enforcing existing gun laws would suffice.

The hits keep on coming for the NRA.

Responding to the Sandy Hook School shooting Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the NRA, proposed a program to immediately put armed guards in every school. LaPierre placed an emphasis on getting “good guys” with guns inside schools as soon as possible.

A charter school (of course) followed the NRA’s advice and hired a firearms instructor to help protect their students.

It didn’t work out.

Who could have anticipated Wayne LaPierre would unleash a right-wing trope that turns out to be a lie?

Trouble in paradise. Outgoing Texas Congressman Ron Paul, often described as the Godfather of the Tea Party, attacked the NRA’s school safety plan.

Thanks to the efforts of Wayne LaPierre and the NRA, the killers at Tucson, Virginia Tech, and the Aurora theater were able to purchase military style weapons–guns with high-capacity magazines, drums, and staggering amounts of ammunition. When Seung-Hui Cho stalked students and teachers at Virginia Tech, he was carrying nearly 400 rounds of ammunition. When a clerk at Walmart refused to sell ammunition to Jared Loughner because he was acting strangely, Loughner drove to another Walmart and purchased it there.

The problem is that the demands of conservatives are out of control. They utterly reject the power of the mind to reason to a plausible understanding of moral values and their application to complex circumstances. Conservatives only use reason to extend by remorseless logic the demands of their primal moral feelings. They do not see that their views, when pushed to their logical limits, are incoherent.

The Newtown murders are a perfect demonstration of that incoherence.

After listening to Wayne LaPierre’s thoughful remarks to advance the respectful discussion of the role of guns in our society . . .

Nope, I just can’t do it.

I wanted to try not to laugh at LaPierre’s comments, but that’s not possible, not even with a 24 hour waiting period. Watching him speak yesterday, I alternated between laughter and tears, as I witnessed a sad spectacle of a man so blind to the real world, so callous as to want to exploit tragedy for commercial gain, or both.

By the end, LaPierre showed us all that he lives in a world filled with demons, and the only thing we can do is adopt the new motto of the NRA: Ready, Shoot, Aim.