You won’t be surprised that the latest head of the NRA is a charter member: 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 was the president of the fratermity and was singled out by the judge for failing to stop it. I feel sick just thinking about it. But I can’t say I’m surprised that someone involved in such an atrocity would become the head of the NRA. After all, most serial killers started off as…