What could be considered one of the most batshit crazy pressers this blogger has ever endured, began with hollow recognition of the carnage that unfolded a week ago today at Sandy Hook elementary and the supposed respectful silence the NRA showcased in its aftermath, and ended with a plan that would see everyone from police, to firemen, and somewhat shockingly, armed patriotic “volunteers,” patrolling America’s schools.
The NRA is an insane organization.
Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association, took the stage and after some amount of scripted platitude launched into the real reason for the press conference — to defend his organization against the evils of the media and put forth a plan that calls for the use of more guns in our society. None of this is terribly surprising. Oh, no. Who are we to think perhaps the NRA would rise to the occasion with a plan that didn’t coincide with as LaPierre stated this morning, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
His justification? A notion that’s been making the rounds across the social media sphere and echoed by gun-owning citizens and encapsulated in LaPierre’s remarks, “We protect our banks with armed guards, airports, courthouses, sports stadiums, and even our president is protected with armed Secret Service, yet when it comes to our most beloved innocents — our children — we as a society leave them utterly defenseless. The monsters and predators know it and exploit it.” But before he continued, a protestor stood up with a sign that read, “NRA is Killing Our Children” by the group Code Pink, who shouted things like “Violence begins with the NRA!” and “You have blood on your hands!”
LaPierre waited for their removal, unanswered, before launching into a slew of reasons why people use gun violence in this country — none of which landing on the ease of obtaining a firearm. He cited the need for a national database of all mentally ill citizens, violent video games including Mortal Kombat, movies like American Psycho, and music videos — the rank and file talking points for those shouting about their 2nd Amendment rights. He likened all these forms of violence-based entertainment to pornography. We’d like to point out that various experts have also stated that America’s infatuation and obsessive desire to own and use guns can be equated to some sort of eroticism in its own right.
Predictably, LaPierre went on to blame the media for demonizing guns and his organization and filling the viewing public’s silly little heads with misinformation and dishonesty when it comes to categorizing assault weapons. You see, they shouldn’t just be used for military purposes. They’re friendly little weapons that don’t cause unnecessary and egregious carnage. And of course banning them is unlawful and won’t protect us — only more guns like the ones Adam Lanza used will protect us from the evil doers “the deranged, evil, possessed by demons, who walk among us,” he stated.
All of this was a wind up to the big pitch — assuming personal responsibility for our schools. The way to do this in LaPierre’s words is to “invest in a plan of absolute protection.” He asks:
Would you rather a gun come from a mile away or a minute away?
He then went on to exploit and almost blame Dawn Hochsprung the Sandy Hook principal for not having a gun in reach. “Why should she have had to sacrifice her life to try and stop a lone gunman?” To that point he states that armed personnel should be in every school and he along with former Congressman and U.S. attorney Asa Hutchinson have devised a plan to implement just that called the “National School Shield Safety System, ” a plan that would see armed police, firemen, retired military, and yes, volunteers in the role of protector in each school.
So in effect you could have the equivalent of various George Zimmerman types, he of the Florida shooting that claimed the life of unarmed Trayvon Martin as he patrolled as a Neighborhood Watch volunteer, stationed in our schools, armed and ready to shoot down a perceived assailant. Or you could have dozens of volunteers acting as a private militia to do the same job.
Before Hutchinson took the stage, another protestor with a sign stood up and attempted to shout LaPierre down. He waited again for security to remove the female protestor. At this point the news media asked if he would address the protests, and when he didn’t the reporter responded, “Oh, just back to the script, huh?” And that’s exactly right. Neither LaPierre nor Hutchinson took questions but proceeded to extol the virtues of armed school compounds.
The point was to lay out a plan that is supposed to counter the government’s steps to ban assault weapons by indicating that the answers a grieving America is looking for in the wake of another shooting which saw a gunman easily acquire an assault weapon to kill twenty-six innocents — is to put more guns in the hands of citizens to enact their own justice. This is the counterattack they have planned to stop mayhem as the incident last Friday was referred to this morning by the NRA. The plan is to stop mayhem with increased mayhem but this time with children in the backdrop — and the enactors of this justice do not need to be law enforcement — they just need to be interested parties with guns.
What could go wrong?
We await the response by Joe Biden and the task force he and the president have convened to address the issues of gun control.
