The National Rifle Association held a much-anticipated press conference this morning, one week after the Newtown tragedy. The NRA's silence following the shooting, as well as its hinting at a bold response, had many people thinking that the organization might actually call for common sense gun laws, or at least universal background checks or similar measures to keep guns out of the hands of those who are least likely to handle them responsibly.
Well, if you expected something new from the NRA in their response to the Sandy Hook shooting, you didn't get it. Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice-president, laid blame for gun violence directly at the feet of video games, movies, gun-free school zones, the media, and the mentally ill. Yes, he actually blamed gun-free school zones for being too much of a temptation to those who would fire at strangers indiscriminately knowing no one would fire back. Not once did he mention the ease with which many can obtain guns, or the amount of firepower that semi-automatic weapons carry. And his solution to this video-game-and-media culture of violence? Apparently putting armed guards in every school. What the what? Yes, indeed. Accordng to Mr. LaPierre, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." Seriously? Wouldn't it be preferable to keep the gun away from the bad guy in the first place? But no, that would eliminate the need for the big NRA announcement...wait for it...Congress should appropriate the funds for every school in the country to have an armed guard to deter or stop the bad guy with a gun. Super. So instead of gun-free school zones, which apparently attract lunatics, we should let it be known that someone in every school is packing heat. Which will attract a lunatic with a bigger gun, and we can have a shootout with the guard! And if the guard loses....well, we're back at square one.
Even if this really is the best solution to end school shootings, what about innocent people shot outside of schools by people illegally possessing guns? Guess they're out of luck, unless they're "a good guy with a gun", that is. Speaking of which, I should add that at the same time Mr. LaPierre was speaking, there was a mass shooting in Pennsylvania with multiple casualties. At least four were killed and five injured - including 3 state troopers - near Altoona, as a gunman walked down a rural road shooting people. Armed school guards are of little use in a situation like this. Last weekend in Chicago, two were killed and 16 injured in shootings across the city. The wounded included boys aged 14 and 16. No armed school guard could have prevented those casualties, either.
This "press conference" (and I use quotes because no questions were taken) was specifically designed to appeal to fear. Following Newtown, what parent of a small child wouldn't want to take whatever measures necessary to ensure the safety of that child? He framed his remarks in a "we must outmuscle the bad guys" context, as if schools were the OK Corral. But look at what Mr. LaPierre didn't say. Not one word about keeping guns out of the hands of those who should not have them. Not one word about strengthening background checks or doing anything at point of sale to limit the number of guns that wind up involved in violent crime. No, it was all about stopping the gun criminal just in the nick of time, with another gun. This isn't the Wild West anymore; we shouldn't have to live as if every person we pass on the street may turn a gun on us.
In fact, Mr. LaPierre chose to portray guns themselves as one of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting. Waah, waah, the media makes guns look so dangerous! Waah, waah, video games are giving people the idea to shoot up the place! I know many people who play violent video games who aren't shooting any guns, let alone shooting other people with them. You represent gun owners, you coward, why don't you take some responsibility for what guns can do when in the hands of the wrong people?
Mr. LaPierre's speech was not a press conference. It was a gun commercial. And many of us are enraged enought that we are going to make sure that it's not a successful one.
Isn't there a an odd inconsitency that the "bad guy with a gun stopped by a good guy with a gun" solution proposed by the NRA is the basic theme of most violent movies and video games the NRA was presenting as being the source of the problem?
Posted by: Geoffrey | 12/21/2012 at 08:32 PM