Mugshot of the accused

FAIRFAX, VA–National Rifle Association spokesperson Kenneth Raymond says the group is discussing internally what its message will be moving forward following the shocking arrest of an M-4 assault rifle for the strangulation death of a prostitute in Pensacola, Florida.

The NRA has long held to the notion that “guns don’t kill people, people do,” a tenet that it seems has been proven indisputably false by the crime, which authorities say was captured on security video in a Motel 6 elevator lobby.

“We at the NRA are in absolute shock,” Raymond says, “This horrible crime basically goes against everything we believed.  The only thing I could compare it to is if you learned that Jesus wasn’t white.”

The accused rifle had been locked up in an armory on the Pensacola Naval Air Station, but apparently escaped sometime over the weekend.  Naval officials say an investigation is underway, but that surveillance video shows the rifle simply walking away from a work detail that was being improperly supervised.

Michael Perkins, an analyst for The Perkins Group, a non-profit media watchdog organization, says he expects the NRA to emerge from the growing controversy following the story largely unscathed.

“I would anticipate that the NRA will look closely at the victim in the case,” Perkins says, “The woman was a prostitute.  Prostitution is a crime.  The purpose of guns, in the eyes of most Americans, is protection against criminals.  It is likely that the NRA will say that this gun did exactly as it was created to do.”

Further complicating the NRA’s longstanding message is the news yesterday that a Remington .12 gauge shotgun has been arrested in New Braunfels, Texas for driving under the influence following a two car accident in which the driver of the second vehicle was critically injured.  The victim, 47 year-old Adam Hoffman, a dentist and Sunday School teacher, is reportedly in grave condition and possibly brain damaged.

“If Hoffman dies, then we have opened a whole new can of worms,” Perkins says, “The NRA will have its hands full with that one.  A white, tax-paying, Christian man killed by a drunk-driving shotgun is hard to overcome, even in Texas.”