Thank you Wayne LaPierre for convincing the rest of America that you are plain out bat shit crazy!
Suppress your laughter when I tell you the NRA’s long-awaited contribution to the post-Sandy Hook debate yesterday was to point everyone’s attention away from guns to everything else.
NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre this morning dismissed the notion that the pro-gun group of about 4 million members would support any kind of gun-control laws, instead saying that "the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." (this morning, I sat in my car outside my village bakery and listened to the actual audio oc LaPierres statement and then listened to it destroyed and dissected by pretty much center commentators on the morning news broadcast around 10 am)
There is no surprise here. Wayne LaPierre was never going to advocate anything that would reduce the profit margins of gun makers, and it only cements into permanent place the complicity of the NRA in the deaths of these victims and those that came before them all these years. What is still surprising is why the national media would even care from this point on about what the NRA says about anything after incredulously suggesting that the only solution was to put more guns into every elementary school. Yeah, that’ll stop nutcases from shooting up schools with automatic and semi-automatic weapons – see Columbine.
Now that the NRA has formally jumped the shark on this issue once and for all, I have a suggestion for the DNC, DSCC, and the DCCC. The GOP has expertly managed to find wedge issues and manufacture outrage to drive up turnout in the off-year elections: see 2010. It’s time for Democrats to do the same. Now that the NRA mother ship has spoken and pulled the strings of all its GOP flying monkeys, the Democratic organizations and media machine should take note of which 2014 GOP incumbents, House and Senate parrot the NRA party line from this point on. Media drumbeats should be started in these districts and states to insert the message out there asking why the GOP seemingly only cares about rich people and gun manufacturers instead of Main Street and school kids.
Democrats should focus their messaging around isolating these pro-gun extremists who oppose background checks, assault weapon bans, and other steps to keep weapons of war off our streets and out of our classrooms. Simply ask why does the GOP think school children and seniors are expendable to protect gun makers and millionaires.
Democrats should use the issue of guns and taxes as their wedge issue for 2014, and watch the GOP implode as the Tea Party scrambles to fend off primary challenges - from the center.
2 comments:
Bat-shit crazy is right, but he's also sly like a fox. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, the country is fed up. I think we'll finally see some changes.
Mike, you're more of an optimist than I. They'll make a lot of noise in DC, bills will pop up, and lawsuits will be filed. But really, what can you do after the genie's out of the bottle?
LaPierre's tone deaf presser was only notable for the fact that a LOT of people who used to swear by the NRA are now questioning its motives and usefulness.
Utter contempt is the right response to this asshat, but I'm afraid they're much to powerful for that reaction.
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