One week to the day after a madman killed 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, the National Rifle Association spoke out on the tragedy. NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre spoke in Washington, D.C., this morning. He noted that unlike the media, the NRA waited until more facts were known about the gunman and the circumstances of his crimes before speaking out.
“Now, we must speak … for the safety of our nation’s children,” LaPierre said. “Because for all the noise and anger directed at us over the past week, no one — nobody — has addressed the most important, pressing and immediate question we face: How do we protect our children right now, starting today, in a way that we know works? The only way to answer that question is to face up to the truth. Politicians pass laws for Gun-Free School Zones. They issue press releases bragging about them. They post signs advertising them. And in so doing, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are their safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk.”
LaPierre offered a solution: We should protect our children as we protect our banks and our political officials. “The only way to stop a monster from killing our kids is to be personally involved and invested in a plan of absolute protection. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Would you rather have your 911 call bring a good guy with a gun from a mile away … or a minute away?”
“Ladies and gentlemen, there is no national, one-size-fits-all solution to protecting our children,” LaPierre continued. “But do know this President zeroed out school emergency planning grants in last year’s budget, and scrapped “Secure Our Schools” policing grants in next year’s budget.
“With all the foreign aid, with all the money in the federal budget, we can’t afford to put a police officer in every school? Even if they did that, politicians have no business — and no authority — denying us the right, the ability, or the moral imperative to protect ourselves and our loved ones from harm.”
LaPierre said that retired police and retired, reserve and active duty military, security professionals and others could quickly fill these roles, and qualified civilians could be trained to join them.
LaPierre also heaped blame on the media for saturation coverage of mass killers, and blamed Hollywood’s and the video game industry, saying the latter is a “shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.”
“Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse. And here’s one: it’s called Kindergarten Killers. It’s been online for 10 years. How come my research department could find it and all of yours either couldn’t or didn’t want anyone to know you had found it?” he asked of the media in attendance.
Criticizing violence in movies like American Psycho and Natural Born Killers, LaPierre said “A child growing up in America witnesses 16,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence by the time he or she reaches the ripe old age of 18.”
LaPierre also heaped blame on the media for saturation coverage of mass killers,
The way to solve this part of the problem would be for every LE agency to identify the killer as “Barack Obama”, that way the media will not only not cover it, but will go out of it’s way to ignore it.
I saw Geralod on F&F this morning and he said if LaPierre didn’t advocate for a ban on “assault” weapons, he would come back on the show and cut his NRA membership cards to shreds. Apparently LaPierre feels they can get by without Geraldo’s membership.
Frankly after his treasonous actions in Iraq I’m surpised the let him join in the first place.
Oops, forgot to identify myself.
The Liberal attempt to scapegoat the NRA for the acts of a madman are factually unsupported, morally repugnant BS.
However, LaPierre’s attempt to scapegoat videogames is equally so. If tens of millions of people play videogames and one person shoots up a school it’s hard to make a case for causation. And I shouldn’t have to give up my PS3 any more than I should have to give up my AR-15 just because there are evil people in the world.
I remember back to a 1970 day at Fort Dix NJ, when we first issued our M16s. After being issued, our orders were to go outside and fall into formation. I and others shouldered the weapon. Muzzle discipline.
I would guess half the company of new recruits were running around, pointing and pretending to shoot each other like kids playing Cowboys and Indians. When we take that condition, and add the media forms being questioned, What do we get? Less..firearm violent culture rot?
My grandchildren can watch Disney Channel TV programs and see young kids wisecracking back to adults. They in turn, thinking it’s normal behavior, will mimic what they see. It’s not until I remove that programming from their choice of possibilities, do they return to a proper attitude and understanding of respect.
To say media dosn’t matter? I don’t agree.
The difference is that the kids wisecracking at the adults is portrayed as funny. Often, in film, adults are portrayed as out of touch, while kids still remember the “things that matter” about life.
Violence in film shows the consequences. People die. They don’t get back up. Any parent worth their salt has already taught their children about death by this point and the children understand that violence is not fun. There are examples of violence without consequences, but they are few and far between and don’t include action movies. Instead these tend to be movies intended to shock and disturb the audience and the parents should take a strong stance on whether their kids watch these (spanking is not out of the question). HOWEVER, taking the stance that it is best to simply avoid the representation of violence to your children means that your children will never learn about violence, which is a very important part of the real world that kids need to understand. Similarly, teaching them that violence is, by nature, wrong (which you do by loudly disapproving of violent films), teaches them that there is no appropriate expression of violence. As a father of two daughters, I will die before I allow my children to believe that all violence is bad…because, then, how do they defend themselves? If someone comes at my child with a knife, she’d better blow the SOB’s head off. I don’t want her to be powerless because of a fear of committing violence against her attacker.
But, like I said, there ARE games and film that portrays indiscriminate violence without consequences. GTA is one of those, but every single first person shooter I’ve ever encountered treats violence realistically (except in multiplayer where you simply “respawn”…but you’re still only shooting at people who are shooting at you) and is too valuable a learning tool to be demonized for its violence.
Also, spanking precludes the necessity of removing those Disney programs. My kids watch the same stuff and they don’t smart off to me.
I don’t disagree but I think LaPierre was pointing the hypocrisy in blaming the gun and discounting the other factors. Yes, the NRA is trying to take some heat off themselves, and rightly so. I liked that LaPierre was much more unapologetic that I feared he would be. Citing the worst examples of gore porn in the media and video game industry and asking why the media has nothing to say about games like Kindergarten Killers was a stroke of rhetorical genius.
I agree that he was good in trying to take the media to task for only blaming the gun when other factors are in play here. don’t agree completely on the video game attack, but he has a point in the desenatization of children to violence. I wish he was speaker of the house if this is a just a taste of the fire in his belly.
Great! It is nice to hear some commonsense ideas for improving security. Like many have said, let’s see these moron politicians give up their armed guards if they think that makes people safer.
I see the NRA is still wedded to law ‘n’ order over and above the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms, which is why I see no prospect of renewing my long-expired NRA membership.
Why blather on about having a cop at every school, or a retired cop/military? Why say citizens who are legally authorized to carry would need extra training to keep watch over a school? Why reinforce the anti-gunner’s belief that citizens are incapable and inept when it comes to carrying and using firearms? Why not just say repeal the gun-free zones laws, and encourage teachers and others to get their CCW permits and carry at school?
“Why blather on about having a cop at every school, or a retired cop/military?”
Let me take a shot (no pun intended) at answering your question. Our schools have become liberal bastions. I would wager that most NEA types, school boards, and administrations would be appalled at the idea of receiving training simply because of the media inspired visceral hatred and fear of the whole notion of responsible gun ownership and most especially if they think that the NRA has anything to do with it. However, they will acquiesce to the notion of a state trained police or military type being in their presence. Furthermore, an armed teacher may serve as a backup to a specifically designated full-time security person but they make a poor line of primary defense simply because they are pre-occupied with their duties. The issue, which has been successfully obscured by the old women in the media, does not begin and end with a discussion of the weapon but with the question of how did a stranger gain unchallenged access to the building where he could run wild to commit any type of heinous act? It takes full-time vigilance to prevent and protect and professional security personnel can only adequately provide for such. If the teacher elects to be a supplement defender then such should be encouraged. Now, quit the easy excuses for sitting on the sidelines and renew your NRA membership.
Yooper
NRA Life Member
More guards, fewer teachers. It is that simple. Get some guns and 90 (or 120) days food, home school your kids, prepare for the coming battle. The hippies said “tune in, turn on, drop out”. Sounds like a good mantra for our times. (Doesn’t that sound ridiculous?)
Good job Wayne! I’m a NRA & GOA member and I approve of your message.
On a personal note, it would be better to home school your kids.
However, given there other illegal activities besides shootings that go on in schools, having a cop close by couldn’t hurt. I like this better than metal detectors and school teachers are afraid of pocket knives.
Of course the solution is to turn elementary schools into fortified prisons! That’s obviously way better than giving up the imagined right to own advanced military firearms only of use to those intending mass murder, I mean that just goes without saying…
“imagined right to own advanced military firearms”
Maybe your public school education omitted the Second Amendment when you were taught the Constitution. Or perhaps you you weren’t taught the Constitution at all, since your entire school day was taken up with exercises in social engineering. At any rate, I’d advise you to read the Constitution sometime – it is available online (for free!) in many places. You may find it to be instructive.
The media is up to their usual sins of ommission.
One of the current suppressed items…
…that the NRA has 9000 new members in about 2 days….
The way this situation is unfolding, with a perfect storm of a brazen, polished anti-firearm media blitz; with the Sandy Hook shooter having whacked his hard-drive; may point to this being a thing larger than just a conspiracy of one nutbar….a disturbing thought, dismissed by Bill Whittle as madness…in a scenario of 100+% voter turnouts, vast # of voting districts logging absolutely no Romney votes…Andrew Breitbart’s sudden death, Fast and Furious, Benghazi…is this really all that preposterous?
To be blunt,in my view the purpose of the Second Amendment is so that the people, in their role as the ultimate seat of sovereignty, will have, independent of central authority, especially that of the national level, freedom to keep and bear military-grade arms, both for the benefit of the state, and in case of truly egregious excesses that seemingly offer no other no hope of solution, to give the people the chance for redress.
I actually am less concered the mechanism by which this right–and need–is ensured, than that it is ensured. No lip service, no fig leaf, no theoretical right that can’t realistically be used, no intrusive harassment–but that the people have the right to arms. To the maximum extent possible. I have no issues with regulations, for people should have faith in a system, that the world is just not anarchy run amok, where you don’t know what some fool is going to do. But, the people have the right to these weapons, and it is time for some who don’t care about the issue to stop trading away the birthright inheritance of others just because it is nothing they themselves care about.. I would consider bans demagoguery. Because it is.
We either trust the people, or we don’t. My personal view is that the American establishment does not trust the people anymore, and seeks to control them. Pity. Or–as a deliberate provacation: perhaps it was just the original American demographic stock, the pre-Civil War stock, that could handle full liberty responsibly enough to warrant the gamble, and now that the nation has changed….