Don’t trust the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre
Don’t trust the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre
The NRA head may have genuinely had a change of heart, but history suggests we should be wary
By Alex Seitz-Wald
snip//
For instance, after the shooting of former Rep. Gabby Giffords last year in Tucson, Ariz., President Obama wrote an Op-Ed in the Arizona Daily Star calling for strengthening the regimen of background checks for people who buy guns. When the New York Times sought LaPierre’s response, he “sounded at times like the White House” during the interview. “The president, in his column, cited the same policy areas Mr. LaPierre mentioned as fertile ground for consensus,” the Times’ Jackie Calmes continued.
But at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington that year, La Pierre had a different response to the Giffords shooting: “Government policies are getting us killed,” he said, referring to gun-free zones that prevent concealed weapon permit holders from bringing their guns inside (the parking lot where Giffords was shot was not such a zone and a citizen was indeed armed).
Later, in September of 2011, LaPierre told the Florida spinoff of CPAC that Obama had intentionally avoided doing anything on guns in his first term in order to lull gun advocates into a false sense of complacency. “They’ll say gun owners — they’ll say they left them alone,” LaPierre said, “But it’s a big fat stinking lie! … It’s all part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment in our country.”
Before Obama took office, LaPierre told members that he was sure the newly elected Democratic president would launch an unprecedented war on guns. But when CNN asked him about this kind of rhetoric in 2009, he downplayed the fear: “Given his past record before he announced for president, I think people are suspicious of what the Obama administration might do,” he said — an entirely reasonable statement.
snip//
After Hurricane Katrina, the fact that police disarmed citizens in the aftermath struck a nerve with gun rights advocates who saw all kinds of conspiracies in the move, on everything from national gun seizures to FEMA camps. But LaPierre, appearing on ABC’s “World News Tonight,” managed to make the post-Katrina gun paranoia sound pretty reasonable: “Citizens were completely on their own against robbers, against looters, and if they didn’t have a firearm they were completely defenseless against the bad guys.”
A few months later, the media was shocked when a draft brochure to be sent to NRA members from LaPierre and another NRA leader was leaked to Wonkette. The letter, which sadly sounds quotidian by today’s standards, warned that “shadowy coalitions” of “one-world extremists” — including the U.N., animal-rights “terrorists” and illegal alien gangs — were preparing for a “profound and foreboding confrontation” with gun owners. “History teaches us that their assault will be precipitated by a high-profile criminal act, like an L.A. riot, a D.C. sniper or a schoolyard shooting. All it takes is a rare, tragic anomaly to roll out a blood-red carpet for the gun-ban crowd … We’d better be ready,” it read. (This, keep in mind, was when President Bush was in the White House and Republicans controlled both houses of Congress.)
more...
http://www.salon.com/2012/12/20/dont_trust_the_nras_wayne_lapierre/
= new reply since forum marked as read
But it sure makes him a lot of money.
Freedom is not cowering in fear of our gun loving neighbors and their teen sons.
Repeal the Second Amendment Now
