Typical NRA Hypocrisy

This should surprise no one.

Wayne LaPierre

A full week after the NRA's stunning silence on the mass gun murders at a Connecticut elementary school, their extremist mouthpiece, Pepe LePew, or whatever his name is, blamed everything but guns for the gun massacres. Yes, we were told 20 first graders were splattered with gunfire because of music, video games from the '90s, television shows, movies, even the President somehow, but not guns and bullets.

That would be like weighing 500 pounds and blaming everything but the Sara Lee cake you continually stuff in your face.

So after putting most of the blame on video games, what did the NRA do just yesterday? Released a violent video game app for iPhones. Shoot at coffin-shaped targets right on your iPhone!  Appropriate for ages 4 and up according to the NRA.

If these fringe nutjobs weren't so dangerous, they'd be funny. "Violent video games are the problem! Not guns! So here's a new violent video game for your kids to play!"

You can't make this stuff up.

Hopefully, enough clear thinking members of congress will pass reasonable, common sense legislation that will stem this gun-massacre epidemic.  Those who want to protect themselves, and those who have the sick need to kill animals, will still be able to have their guns. Nobody's taking anything away. But we need to ban military style semi-automatic assault weapons, designed to kill dozens of people in seconds. And those 30-round clips and 100-round drums. No self-protector or animal-killer needs those. We need to make sure guns aren't sold to the insane. And we need to close gunshow loopholes.

I have yet to hear what's so "controversial" about those common sense restrictions.

Let's remember that WORDS have never killed anyone. Yet the First Amendment, all about Free Speech, has reasonable restrictions. You can't slander someone or you'll get sued. You can't incite violence. You can't lie in a court of law. There are punishments for those who do.

Yep, it's okay to have restrictions on the First Amendment -- about words -- but not on the Second Amendment -- which is all about guns and bullets that kill over 10,000 Americans every year. This is the twisted logic spewed by the NRA. Funny thing, polls show that the vast majority of NRA members actually want reasonable, common sense gun laws. But the NRA doesn't represent them. It represents the gun manufacturers. It's all about profit and selling a product.

100 More American Gun Deaths In a Week

Since the Connecticut elementary school shooting, one week ago, where 20 six-year-olds and 6 adults were massacred by a crazed gun nut with military-style assault weapons and huge clips that could enable one to shoot and kill dozens of people in seconds, another hundred people have been killed by guns and gun nuts.

The National Rifle Association, which has only 4 million members yet holds Regressive republicans in congress in a choke hold, has done the typical cowardly thing: they hid in the closet for a week before peeking their heads out and making a statement.

Wayne LaPierre

And what a statement that was. It came yesterday afternoon, when Pepe LePew, or whatever the name of their CEO in charge of promoting gun sales, said that he could not back one more law to restrict gun ownership, and that the problem is that there simply aren't enough guns in circulation. This insane coward actually stated that the only solution to "a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." His ingenious idea? Have an armed guard at every school in the country.

Yes, let's make every elementary school a maximum security prison, complete with armed police, armed teachers and an arsenal of weapons in every classroom. That sounds safe.

If only the teachers and all those 6 year olds were armed, this could have all been avoided, right Pepe LePew?

So now the very same teachers that the far rightwing blowhards and Foxbots refer to as "union thugs," the very same ones who are "paid too much" and need to be fired by the thousands, these same teachers now have to take on the additional responsibility to act as SWAT team members and sharpshooters.

And since all schools have multiple entrances, there will need to be multiple armed guards. And what about movie theaters? What about shopping malls? Should there be dozens of armed guards at all those locations, too?

What the NRA's CEO in Charge of Gun Sales has conveniently forgotten in his insane rant carried by every cable news network yesterday, is that there was an armed guard at Columbine High School. That didn't stop a mass murder. Virginia Tech had its own police department. That didn't stop a mass murder. And most ironic of all, Fort Hood is loaded with guns and experts in their use -- it's a military base! And that didn't stop a mass murder.

Turning elementary schools into armed camps seems very reasonable to this insane rightwing gun nut, but background checks making sure the mentally ill don't get their hands on guns is not reasonable, right? Banning high powered, military-style assault weapons and large clips that can kill 100 people in 30 seconds is out of the question, right Mr. LePew?

The NRA is a lobbying organization that represents gun manufacturers, not gun owners. Reasonable, common sense gun laws are favored by the great majority in this country -- including most members of the NRA, according to recent polls.

Doing background checks to make sure guns don't end up in the hands of the mentally ill is a common sense gun law. Banning high powered, military-style assault weapons that can -- with huge clips -- kill 100 people in 30 seconds, is a common sense gun law.

Nobody's taking guns away. Nobody's infringing on the Second Amendment. But there are necessary, reasonable restrictions.

Even the First Amendment -- you know, that "free speech" thing -- has RESTRICTIONS, dealing with inciting violence, slander, lying in a court of law, etc.

You can't do that.

The Second Amendment DOES NOT give you carte blanche to own just anything you want. You can't have grenades, rocket launchers, tanks, drones or nukes. And you can't have military style semi automatic weapons.

If you like, you may own as many muskets as you want. Those weapons, which allowed you to shoot once or twice in a minute, are what was available when the Second Amendment was written.

Last night's Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell summed it up perfectly:

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2 Separate Gun Massacres in One Week

Three days ago it was a mall in Oregon; this time an elementary school in Connecticut. This time 27 were killed.

NBC News says the guns used in the Connecticut shooting were purchased legally. This is part of the problem.  If someone like this maniac, who executes the second deadliest school shooting in the country's history, can get his hands on this kind of weaponry legally, then the law must change.

President Obama, this afternoon: "We're going to have to come together to take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics."

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So what now?

Are we going to do what we usually do -- wring our hands, shake our heads, say "how awful," and then do nothing?

We are a barbaric country with a Regressive republican congress wholly owned by the NRA. Until we kick out every last one of them, nothing will change.

And I don't want to hear another meaningless platitude from a far rightwing gun nut.  I've heard them all.

"Now's not the time to discuss gun control."

So then apparently we have to make an appointment. How's June 29, 2035? No good. There will probably be a shooting on that day, too.

"Too bad everybody wasn't armed. Everybody could have been shooting at everybody else and it would have been so much better."

That's essentially what these idiots said after Virginia Tech. "If only every student was armed..."  And that's what they said after the Colorado movie theater massacre. "If only everybody in that theater was armed..."

Can you imagine if a shot is fired in a theater or classroom, and everybody whips out a gun, sees everybody else holding a gun, and starts blasting away?

"Guns don't kill people; people kill people."

Yeah, by the thousands, with guns.

 "If guns are outlawed..."

I don't even want to continue with the meaningless bumper sticker platitudes that these righties regurgitate every time this situation comes up.

I think talk show host Mike Malloy said it best:

I will not be on the air tonight. I can't do it. I cannot sit behind a microphone and talk about yet another incomprehensible act of gun violence - this time against the complete innocence and vulnerability of children.

There are no words that can be said to provide any sort of comfort to the parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers of the children murdered in the sanctuary of a school class

room. The pain they will feel is beyond description - there is no way to express this sort of horror.

As for me . . . I am choking on the tears and anguish that other parents - those whose children were not murdered this bright Winter's day - must be feeling.

So . . . 

The "best of" program Kathy has for tonight dealt with a different shooting, not quite one year ago. I will try to be back on the air Monday. 

Today's mass murder of children and their adult caretakers can be - and should be - seen as the NRA's holiday gift to America. How else to comprehend any of this?

- Mike

 

Rightwing Backlash Against Bob Costas

Another great "rewrite" from Lawrence O'Donnell, this time about the irrational rightwing meltdown over another gun tragedy.

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