"The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," claims the NRA's Wayne LaPierre
In what was supposed to be a "" for the organization, the National Rifle Association held a rare press event on Friday afternoon offering its first public comments since last week's horrifying school shootings in Newtown, Conn., which claimed the lives of 26 victims, including 20 young children. "While some have tried to exploit the tragedy for political gain, we have remained respectfully silent," said NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre. "For all the noise and anger directed at us over the past week, 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 we know works?"The answer, the NRA says, is more guns."Think about it. We care about our money, so we protect our banks with armed guards," LaPierre said. "We care about our president, so we protect him with armed secret service agents." Yet when it comes to our children, "we as a society leave them utterly defenseless, and the monsters and predators of the world know it and exploit it."To avoid future violence in schools, the NRA wants to put armed security in every school under a new, and called on Congress to act immediately. "The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun," saidLaPierre, "is a good guy with a gun." ( on how much this plan might cost.)LaPierrealso called for a nationally instituted database for the mentally ill, and cast aspersions on a supposed "shadow industry" of violent video games and movies like Mortal Kombat(1992) and Natural Born Killers (1994). "Isn't fantasizing about killing peopleas a way to get your kicks the dirtiest form of pornography?" he asked.Two protesters interrupted LaPierre's speech, and both were removed from the event. Association president David Keene told the media in attendance that there would be no questions at what was originally billed as a press conference.The NRA, which was first founded in 1871, is America's largest and most powerful pro-gun organization. In the week since the tragedy in Connecticut, it has seen its membership skyrocket, adding 8,000 members each day, .Predictably, much of the Twittersphere was rather horrified by LaPierre'ssurprisingly tone-deaf speech. Here, some first reactions:LaPierre: Black is white.David Corn (@DavidCornDC)
Where's the security at this NRA press conference? Seems contradictory to the points LaPierre is making.Nick Carbone (@nickcarbone)
NRA blames 20-year-old Sega games, 10-year-old movies and MTV's non-existent music videos for gun violence.Mike Isaac (@MikeIsaac)
This is called playing to your base.Ben Smith (@BuzzFeedBen)
Protester #2 at the NRA presserMike Hayes (@michaelhayes)
All credit to NRA President David Lynch. RT @: This press conference is like bizarre performance art.daveweigel (@daveweigel)
Congratulations, Clint Eastwood. You no longer gave the most tone deaf political speech of the year.pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee)
In the UK the good guys dont generally need guns to stop bad guys because the bad guys dont have guns.Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias)
It's amazing how much damage LaPierre is doing to the NRA without even allowing questions.Ezra Klein (@ezraklein)
Until 1974, NRA was pro-gun and pro-gun control. Then the absolutists took over.Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg)
Wayne LaPierre dispatches army of straw men to protect elementary schools.Adam Sorensen (@adamsorensen)
No two ways about: This is gross, awful, dishonest.Josh Marshall (@joshtpm)
There are about 99,000 public schools in the U.S. That's a lot of officers to hire in the next 10 days.Marty Kady (@mkady)
While I agree with the NRA and LaPierre's points in substance, I'm not sure this presser was good in style a week after Newtown.Erick Erickson (@EWErickson)
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