News is filtering out from the National Rifle Association news conference today to respond to the gun slaughter in Connecticut.
Doesn’t sound like a change of tone from the gun nuts.
Video games are under fire. Also, the “national media machine” for encouraging “copycats” by rewarding them with fame.
Moreover, gun-free school zones are under fire (this is part of a recent boom in gun nut commentary in favor of arming teachers, from kindergarten through graduate school.)
The answer as ever: MORE GUNS!!!!
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” says Wayne LaPierre of the NRA.
Watching LaPierre via livestream, I see, among others, he’s repeating a call for armed security in every school. He says the federal budget can afford it.
NOTE: Columbine High had an armed guard on duty. Fort Hood, scene of another slaughter, has some guns around, I’m guessing.
MAJOR ARKANSAS UPDATE: LaPierre has just announced that Asa Hutchinson, likely Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2014 and former Homeland Security leader, will lead an NRA taskforce on school security (a “national school shield safety program”). Hutchinson says it will produce a model plan that can be adapted to specific needs. The NRA will train people to work in schools.
“Armed, trained security personnel” will be one element of the plan, Hutchinson said, though “not the only one.” He said if a schol district decided it didn’t want or need armed officers on campus, that would be a decision by a local school board to make.
He insisted security could be added without a great expense from local, state or federal govenments. “I think there are people in every community in the country who’d be happy to serve,” Hutchinson said. They need only be asked and trained. He said his own son worked in a volunteer Watchdog Dad group to provided added patrols and security at his school.
No questions were allowed of LaPierre, Hutchinson or anyone else. No dilution of message allowed. As ever, more spiritual respect for the 2nd Amendment than the 1st. Here are Hutchinson’s prepared remarks.
Response on Twitter not favorable to the NRA. Not surprising. The NRA played to the base. That’s all it knows how to do.
Buzz Feed is ready to call bull**** on the notion that Asa! is somehow an independent arbiter on these matters. He is, in short, a gun nut. Favored a SHORTER waiting period for gun purchases; opposes registration; wants armed people in every school; had termed Clinton gun control efforts politicization of a complicated issue. Look who’s politicking now?
UPDATE: NRA getting worked over pretty good for refusing to have guns pried from its cold, dead-to-reality fingers.