NRA News has already addressed Newtown

By DYLAN BYERS | 12/18/12 12:32 PM EST

While the NRA has not responded to media inquiries and stopped all social media activity, NRA News, a news show owned and operated by the NRA, has continued to broadcast online. The topic of the broadcasts has been the Newtown shooting, and hosts and guests alike have said directly that the shooting should not be blamed on guns.

On Friday, the day of the shooting, NRA News host Cam Edwards attributed the shooting not to the availability of guns but to an absence of love, an argument similar to the one made by former Gov. Mike Huckabee on Fox News that same day.

"I don't think the issue is an issue: I don't think the issue is parenting, or Hollywood, or guns, or rap music, or young men.... It is the foundational stuff... whether it's a lack of love, a lack of empathy for others, an apathy," Edwards said.

On Monday, NRA News host Ginny Simone led her program with "the national debate about the need for tougher gun laws," during which both she and her guest, National Review columnist John Fund, stuck to anti-gun control talking points.

"What do we see coming right out of this tragedy right away? You've got Mayor Bloomberg, you've got Sen. Chuck Schumer and Sen. Dianne Feinstein insisting that we need tougher gun laws. And you look at Connecticut, and they're number five when it comes to the strictest gun laws in the country," Simone said.

"Look, some people just want to turn this into a political football," Fund replied. "Most of them know that you're not actually going to pass gun control laws. It's just not going to happen. So for them to come right out of the box wihtin hours, or barely a day after this, and talk about new gun control legislation is either irrelevant or its frivilous."

Elsewhere in the program, Fund said the shooting was "a mental health issue as much as anything," and pointed out that before the Newtown shooting, "the top three school shooting incidents in the world were not in the United States, the top three were in either Britain or Germany, which have extremely strict gun control laws -- far stricter than anything in this country."

Andrew Arulanandam, the NRA's Director of Public Affairs, did not respond to a request for an interview.

(h/t Reid Epstein)