Crime & Safety

NRA Considered Canceling Convention After Columbine Massacre: NPR

NPR obtained several hours of recordings that show how the NRA responded to deadly shootings two decades ago.

COLUMBINE, CO — A secret tape, recorded after the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, shows how the National Rifle Association has changed over the past two decades, according to a report by NPR.

The NRA considered canceling its annual convention after the deadly shooting, NPR reports.

The massacre left 13 dead and more than 20 injured, and the NRA in 1999 considered a $1 million fund to care for the victims — another consideration that shows "a strikingly more sympathetic posture toward mass shootings," the NPR article read.

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"Don't anybody kid yourself about this great macho thing of going down there and showing our chest and showing how damn tough we are," one NRA official is quoted, in part, in the recording.

Read the full NPR report here.

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