Keep in mind the question of what might childless cat ladies say.
Torturing a frat cat to death for not using its litterbox presages a career raising to the top of the NRA. Some, not all, may postulate a connection - a common mindset.
Douglas Hamlin, who was appointed to lead the NRA
this summer in the wake of a long-running corruption scandal at the gun
rights group, was involved decades ago in the sadistic killing of a
fraternity house cat named BK, according to several local media reports
at the time.
Hamlin pleaded no contest to a
misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty brought against him and four of his
fraternity brothers in 1980, when he was an undergraduate student at
the University of Michigan
at Ann Arbor. The charge was brought against Hamlin under a local Ann
Arbor ordinance. All five members of Alpha Delta Phi were later expelled
from the fraternity.
The
details of the case, described in local media reports at the time, are
gruesome. The house cat was captured, its paws were cut off, and was
then strung up and set on fire. The killing, which occurred in December
1979, was allegedly prompted by anger that the cat was not using its
litterbox.
The case caused such a furore locally that some students and animal rights activists wore buttons and armbands in memory of BK.
The details of the case, described in local media reports at the time, are gruesome. Photograph: Courtesy Shelagh Abbs Winter
Hamlin
served as the fraternity president at the time, according to the media
reports. While Hamlin’s exact role in the killing is unclear, a report
in the Ann Arbor News published in March 1980 – at the time of the court
case – said that district court judge SJ Elden singled Hamlin out for
criticism, saying he could have prevented it from happening as the
leader of the fraternity.
The judge called the
cat killing an “unconscionable and heinous” act and suggested the
fraternity had tried to engage in a coverup to protect its members after
the crime was exposed.
“Heartlessness must be
in the job description to run the NRA,” said Nick Suplina, senior vice
president for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety.“This
revelation shows that the NRA has failed to turn the page on its
scandal-plagued leaders and its doom spiral continues with Hamlin at the
helm.”
It happened, shaming now, why not? There is something to the story repellent to regular people, and it has rattled out of the "sorry I did it" closet as news.
There is, by the time University of Michigan student status is reached a certain maturity expected, and cruel deviance suggests a personality defect, hopefully since cured.
Politically incorrect? Absolutely, but than it's the NRA, not United Hope Charities that has its current embrace of one of the involved cat-killer individuals. The NRA is not the home of kind and sensitive leadership. It's a crass highly funded single issue lobbyist. But - name a lobbyist venture that is really sensitive to absolute decency. The cause may be just, but what of tactics, at the best of such trading operations.
Friends of the Boundary Waters comes to mind as the best of the genre. It's okay.
BOTTOM LINE: The story is weird. The behavior reprehensible. Decades ago. What should be the public's reaction now? Beyond scorn?
