The National Rifle Association, the nation’s largest gun advocates lobby, attributed the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, to “school free zones,” arguing that “genuine monsters” are attracted to schools because its administrators and teachers are not armed. “Politicians pass laws for gun free school zones, they issue press releases bragging about them,” NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said. “And, in doing so, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk.”
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre declared and urged Congress to “act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation.” The lobby will create a “National School Shield Program” that will help schools respond to attacks, led by former Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR).
In a news conference repeatedly interrupted by protesters blaming the NRA for “killing our kids,” LaPierre shoveled out blame far and wide, going after reporters for glorifying killers like Adam Lanza, violent movies, video games, and music videos. He tore into gun safety advocates for exploiting the tragedy for “political gain,” targeted President Obama for underfunding police initiatives in schools, and said that the media demonized “local gun owners” and spread “misinformation and dishonest thinking that only delay meaningful action and all but guarantee that the next violence is a new cycle away.” “Add another hurricane, terrorist attack, or some other natural of man-made disaster, and you’ve got a recipe for a national nightmare of violence and victimization,” he said.
This is all just astonishingly transparent bullshit. Other countries have all of this stuff — the games, the movies, the hurricanes (?!) — and they don’t need an army of armed guards protecting their schools. If these were the causes of school massacres, they’d be a worldwide phenomenon. What the US does have that other countries don’t is a level of gun saturation that far outstrips the rest of the world. For every 100 resident, the US has 88.8 guns. The second highest level of gun saturation in the world is Serbia, with a mere 58.2. We have more guns that everyone and — duh! — it’s not making us any safer. It’s just making everything progressively worse.
And now we have to subsidize this by paying for an literal army of armed school guards? Has anyone noticed that we’re about to go over a freakin’ fiscal cliff? And now we need to add more spending? Besides, how’s that stop things like the Aurora theater massacre? This should absolutely be a nonstarter.
It’s time to get very, very serious about the problem of gun in our society. And step number one is inviting Wayne LaPierre and his soft-on-crime blood lobby/murder club/fear factory to kindly STFU and let the adults handle things from here on out.
