NRA's top lawyer was convicted of murdering his girlfriend's mother in 1964

The cover story for Mother Jones this month is about Bob Dowlut, NRA's general counsel, "who for 30 years has been the architect of the National Rifle Association's legal and cultural agenda." (Gawker)

Monika Bauerlein, co-editor of Mother Jones, emailed me and said that Dowlut, as a teenager, "was sent to prison for shooting his girlfriend's mother [shot three times at close range], but then had his conviction thrown out for police misconduct. It's a deeply reported and yes, empathetic story about what must have been a complicated trajectory."