National Rifle Association board member Charles Cotton has exhibited an amazing capacity for heartlessness.

He has placed the blame for the shocking shooting deaths of nine Charleston, S.C., church members on one of the victims.

Despicable.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/nra-board-member-blames-clementa-pinckney-charleston-shooting-119202.html?ml=po

Cotton’s narrative goes something like this: One of the victims is state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, who voted against legislation allowing South Carolinians to carry concealed handguns. Had the measure passed, according to Cotton, the victims would be alive.

According to Politico: “And he voted against concealed-carry. Eight of his church members who might be alive if he had expressly allowed members to carry handguns in church are dead,” Cotton responded to the post on Thursday afternoon. “Innocent people died because of his position on a political issue.”

Pinckney, who was pastor of the church where the carnage occurred, is responsible for this tragedy. Did you get that?

What in the world is Charles Cotton, a Texas NRA board member, thinking in trying to blame one of the victims killed in that rampage?

Suppose for a moment that someone in the church was packing a pistol when the gunman opened fire. Is the NRA board member certain that he or she could have stopped the shooter on the spot — without anyone else suffering grievous injury or death on the melee?

Good grief! It’s been only four days since the tragedy erupted in that house of worship.

Can’t there be some sort of cooling-off period? Can’t we wait a reasonable length of time before leveling blame? And for crying out loud, can’t we declare “hands off!” the memory of one of the victims of this senseless act?