NRA Insanity Rules: Wayne La Pierre’s Response to Florida Massacre

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Wayne La Pierre. Photo: Gage Skidmore-Flickr

It took NRA CEO Wayne La Pierre a week to respond to the Valentine’s Day School massacre which took the lives of 17 high school students and personnel, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Florida.

La Pierre’s message of madness is one we’ve heard before: we need more guns—not less—to stop gun violence.

If La Pierre were right, wouldn’t America have less gun violence already, since there are approximately 300 million guns floating around in America—a figure that is higher per capita than any nation in the world?

During an unhinged speech, devoid of reality, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC, La Pierre’s main message in the aftermath of this latest episode of mass murder was to tell America that: “To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun.” Reportedly, there was one “good guy” with a gun, Deputy Scot Peterson—and he failed to stop the “bad guy with the gun.”

Echoing President Trump, La Pierre position is: if we flood schools with more guns we will magically have safer schools. Apparently, like Trump, La Pierre thinks what we need is more shootouts—cowboy, O.K. Corral style—to stop school shooters. The weird reasoning here is: we need more gun violence, to eradicate gun violence.

Should we be surprised to hear insanely asinine logic like this from those who represent the manufacturing merchants of death in the gun-making, and military war-profiteering industries?

Fearmongering and warmongering—not peace—is how these folks make money. Unfortunately, for the NRA, and their political lackeys, La Pierre’s claim is undercut by the big business success of gun manufacturers in selling their killing machines to regular Americans.

According to the Congressional Research Service, in 2009, there were more than 300 million guns in America—a figure that approximates the slightly over 300 million people in America. That number must have gone way up by now.

America, per capita, is the most armed nation in the world. The nearest Western nations are France and Canada, coming in ninth and tenth, respectively. France has 31.2 guns per 100 people. Canada has 30.8 guns for every 100 people. This Congressional Research Service analysis found that America has 101 guns for every 100 persons.

Going by the NRA leader’s logic and the prevalence of guns here, shouldn’t America have much less mass shootings than other countries, instead of more?

During President Trump’s “listening session,” he promoted the idiocy of arming teachers. According to him, having more teachers with weapons will positively change the deadly consequences of school shootings. Conveniently, for the NRA, and gun manufacturers, this notion will increase, not decrease, gun sales.

Isn’t profit really the only thing these immoral people care about?

The brave bright students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School clearly see through the fallacy in this arming-teachers argument. Several of them, have pointed out the awful outcomes that would likely occur. In a scenario, where both gunman and teacher are armed—and exchanging gunfire—how many panicked people would know who the “bad guy” is? What happens when the teacher is mistakenly shot, because they were presumed to be the gunman—which would surely happen in cases where the armed teacher is a Black person?

The clear-headed thinking and activist-mindset of these students has Republicans, and their NRA donor-daddies, fearful—especially, with the now emerging Never Again Movement. Several corporate companies have already cut ties with the NRA. They include: Delta Airlines, United Airlines, Best Western, Wyndham Hotels, Hertz, MetLife Inc, Enterprise Car Rental, Avis, and Symantec Corp, among others.

Isn’t this why Mr. La Pierre complained about a “new socialist wave,” that is supposedly attempting “the systematic destruction of our most basic freedoms?” What about accountability after gun massacres?

The only freedom La Pierre cares about is his freedom to become superrich off the selling of guns that were made to do one thing: kill many people quickly. Republicans by the actions, and inactions, show us they care little about all the innocent people who are killed by guns in America.

According to Everytownresearch.org, on average there are 13,000-gun homicides every year in America. Daily, 96 Americans are killed by guns. This means guns are involved in more than 34,000 deaths annually in the U.S.

Monthly, 50 women are shot to death by an intimate partner; and, although Blacks represents a mere 12 percent of America’s population, they are 13 times more likely than Whites to be killed by guns.

In a transparent attempt to deflect from speaking about the glaring need for gun-control NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch said: “I am saying that you [media] love the ratings. Crying White mothers are ratings gold. … And notice that I said ‘crying White mothers’ because there are thousands of grieving Black mothers in Chicago every weekend. Where’s the CNN town hall for Chicago?”

Is Loesch trying to pretend she cares about “grieving Black mothers,” who have lost children to gun violence?

Let’s recall, Loesch is the same person who made an incendiary video saying, in part, “they use their ex-president to endorse the resistance. All to make them march, make them protest, make them scream racism and sexism and xenophobia and homophobia and smash windows, burn cars, shut down interstates and airports, bully and terrorize the law abiding — until the only option left is for police to do their jobs and stop the madness.”

A big part of Loesch’s racist rant here was complaining about activists, like those in Black Lives Matter, who have mobilized against racist police violence. Wasn’t she endorsing police violence against peaceful protesters? Why did she find it necessary to call President Barack Obama “their ex-president?”

Truthfully though, much of White America—including many mainstream media—don’t give a damn about dead Black Americans. White America’s collective silence when killer-cops kill Black people speaks volumes.

The Second Amendment was a tool initially instituted to maintain Slavery and Black oppression—not to bestow individual gun rights. Americans who think the Second Amendment was meant to grant individual gun rights, should answer this question: why is the word people in the Second Amendment not capitalized—while the words Arms, Militia and State are?

Now, if Loesch cares so much about “grieving Black mothers in Chicago,” why didn’t she speak out for Laquan McDonnell’s mother and family—who witnessed his gruesome murder on video? Why didn’t she speak up for licensed gun-owner Philando Castile’s mother after he was unjustly killed?

Ms. Loesch probably cares less about dead Black kids than most White Americans. She represents those whose interests are, singularly, to make money by creating efficient killing technology. Are we to trust corrupt charlatans like her, and other NRA Republican cronies, who get their pockets stuffed with NRA blood money? She is playing the race card to preserve blood money.

According to opensecrets.org, the top ten receivers, in the Senate, of NRA contributions—who are all Republicans are: (1) Arizona Senator John McCain $7,740,521 (2) North Carolina Senator Richard Burr $6,986,931 (3) Missouri Senator Roy Blount $4,551,146 (4) North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis $4,418,012 (5) Colorado Senator Cory Gardner $3,879,064 (6) Florida Senator Marco Rubio 3,303,355 (7) Iowa Senator Joni Ernst $3,124,273 (8) Ohio Senator Rob Portman $3,061,941 (9) Indiana Senator Todd Young $2,896,732 and (10) Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy $2,861,047.

The NRA spent $30 million to elect Trump. Is there any wonder why he wants to arm teachers?

Reportedly, in the 2016 election cycle, the NRA and other gun right entities spent around $54 million to support Republicans. Isn’t the deafening silence we hear for Republicans due to these blood money bribes? Why haven’t we heard from Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, or, House Speaker Paul Ryan?

The only contemporary mainstream politician I have heard speak with brutal honesty on gun violence is Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy. On MSNBC’s “All In” show, with Chris Hayes, Governor Malloy recently said, “We are a gun and violence culture, and we need to get away from that.”

Amen.

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