NRA chief involved in gruesome cat killing as college fraternity member (****TRIGGER WARNING****)
Last edited Tue Oct 15, 2024, 03:24 AM - Edit history (2)
Source: The Guardian
Mon 14 Oct 2024 06.00 EDT
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. 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.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/14/nra-doug-hamlin-cat-killing
(****TRIGGER WARNING****) per request
= new reply since forum marked as read
as he wants.
He went from the head of a group of animal torturing sadists to the head of the "your dead children don't trump my rights" fraternity.
Sounds to me like an entirely predictable progression,
Just a summary, together with a link for those who really want to know all the grisly details, would take care of things nicely, imo.
I pressed ahead and read it, for some stupid reason, even though I could tell from the title that I was going to regret it. And I do regret it, but it was like one of those staring at a train wreck things. 
And now I need brain bleach, which of course is my own fault, and I will deal. But not putting ALL of that in the post would keep people who know they don't want to read it from seeing it accidentally AND give people who are too curious for their own good (like me) a chance to stop and think first before clicking on the link.
And those who really do want to read it can just click on the link and have at it. Sounds like a win all around to me!
or leave the gruesome details off the first post.
I know this happened a long time ago and there were big protests about it, but some of us like animals better than most people.
Thank you. 
