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Subscribe to RSSAfter a controversial press conference last week, NRA head Wayne LaPierre made an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" saying the American people would be "crazy" to not put armed guards in schools. Meanwhile, Newtown, Conn., continues coping with the death of 26 people during the tragic shooting. NBC's Ron Mott report.
Updated 10:50 a.m. ET: On NBC’s Meet the Press, National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre on Sunday refused to support new gun control legislation and maintained his support for putting armed guards and police in schools in response to the Dec. 14 school shootings in Newtown, Conn.
“If it’s crazy to call for putting police in and securing our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy,” LaPierre told NBC’s David Gregory. “I think the American people think it’s crazy not to do it. It’s the one thing that would keep people safe and the NRA is going try to do that.”
He added that the United States is now spending $2 billion to train police officers in Iraq and asked why federal funds could not be spent to train school guards to protect schools in the United States.
Asked about restricting the size of ammunition magazine or clips, LaPierre said, “I don’t believe that’s going to make one difference. There are so many different ways to evade that, even if you had that. You had that for 10 years when (Sen.) Dianne Feinstein passed that ban in ’94. It was on the books. Columbine occurred right in the middle of it – it didn’t make any difference.”
For the first time since the Connecticut shootings, NRA Chief Wayne LaPierre answers questions from NBC's David Gregory about his organization's stance on gun violence in America.
Feinstein, D-Calif., was the author of the 1994 ban on certain types of semiautomatic firearms which expired in 2004. She has announced that she will introduce new legislation early next year. Semiautomatic firearms, including semiautomatic weapons sometimes called “assault weapons,” fire one round per pull of the trigger.
“I know there’s a media machine in this country that wants to blame guns every time something happens,” LaPierre said, but he insisted that an armed guard might have been able to stop Adam Lanza, the killer in Connecticut.
“If I’m a mom or a dad and I’m dropping my child off at school I’d feel a whole lot safer” if there were trained armed security guards or police protecting the school from people such as Lanza, LaPierre said, although he conceded that “nothing is perfect” as a deterrent against crime.
LaPierre also said, “We have a mental health system in this country that has completely and totally collapsed. We have no national database of these lunatics” and complained that de-institutionalization of the mentally ill had put too many dangerous people on the streets of America. “We have a completely cracked mentally ill system that’s got these monsters walking the streets,” LaPierre said.
And he said many states do not put their records of those adjudicated to be mentally ill into the national instant check system that is designed to screen out convicted criminals and the mentally ill from buying guns.
The NRA CEO also argued that the federal government had invested far too little effort into enforcing the longstanding federal law that makes it illegal for convicted felons to possess guns. The federal effort to enforce existing restrictions on gun possession, he said, is “pitiful.”
On Meet the Press, NRA chief Wayne LaPierre forcefully defended his call for armed officers in every school. NBC's Peter Alexander reports.
He said, “If you want to control violent criminals, take them off the street.”
But he firmly opposed curbs on private gun sales and contended that the advocates of stringent restrictions on such sales want to put “every gun sale under the thumb of the federal government.”
LaPierre called Feinstein’s bill “a phony piece of legislation” which he predicted would not become law.
After a week of silence following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School the NRA responded, saying armed guns in schools is the answer. "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," said Wayne LaPierre, NRA's executive vice president. NBC's John Harwood reports.
President Barack Obama has tasked Vice President Joe Biden with the job of consulting with members of the Cabinet and outside organizations to come up with legislative proposals by next month.
When asked about this initiative, LaPierre said, “if it’s a panel that’s just going to be made up of a bunch of people that for the past 20 years has been trying to destroy the Second Amendment, I’m not interested in sitting on that panel…. The NRA is not going to let people lose the Second Amendment in this country.”
Following LaPierre on Meet the Press, Sen. Charles Schumer, D- N.Y., said that the NRA leader is “so extreme and so tone deaf that he actually helps the cause of us passing sensible gun legislation in the Congress…. He is so doctrinaire and so adamant that I believe gun owners turn against him as well.”
Schumer said that LaPierre believes “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is good gun with a gun. What about trying to stop the bad guy from getting the gun in the first place? That’s common sense. Most Americans agree with it.”
But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C., said killers such as Lanza were “non-traditional criminals… people who are not wired right for some reason. And I don’t know if there’s anything Lindsey Graham can do in the Senate to stop mass murder from somebody that’s hell bent on doing crazy things” -- apart from better security in schools. The South Carolina Republican also called for getting “mass murders off the streets before they act, by better mental health detection.”
After a week of calls for tighter gun restrictions, the National Rifle Association called for putting more armed security officers in the nation's schools and expressed concerns about violence portrayed in video games, movies and music. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
Graham said that while he was out Christmas shopping in South Carolina this weekend, people “have come up to me (and said) ‘Please don’t let the government take my guns away.’ And I’m going to stand against the assault (weapons) ban because it didn’t work before and it won’t work in the future.”
LaPierre’s appearance on Meet the Press followed the strong reaction over his defiant stand during a Friday press briefing about the NRA’s response to the Connecticut school shootings.
Amid a national debate over what security measures school administrators should take to ensure the safety of students, gun-control advocates reacted with disbelief Friday to LaPierre’s call for armed guards in every school and his blaming of Hollywood films, video games, and popular music for school shootings such as the one in Connecticut.
How firmly the NRA’s allies in Congress will oppose any new legislative initiatives from Obama, Feinstein or others remains an open question.
In a test of the NRA’s legislative influence, the House of Representatives late last year passed the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act, which has not yet been acted on by the Senate.
In the House vote, 229 Republicans and 43 Democrats voted for the NRA-backed bill.
The House bill allows a person with a photo identification card and a valid permit to carry a concealed firearm in one state to carry a concealed handgun in another state in accordance with the restrictions of that second state.
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What I hear s that the NRA wants to use retired police and miltary as the "security" in our public areas. While I am certain that some of these might work out, many of them are the Walmart greeter type of person. Is that what we want?
LaPierre has created a political club far removed from reality that, coincidentally, pays him $975,000 a year in salary alone. 4 million members dictating what the 300+ million rest of us should do.
Like so many extremists, it appears to be more about his personal fortune than it is any kind of greater good.
Waaahhhh...
No gun control for you Liberal...
Gun control will come and there is NOTHING you can do about it.
Actually no it won't. There are over 300 million guns. Who is going to go get them. I know are military wont. They have to uphold the constitution not the president of the USA.
Actually, yes it will. There are 270 Million guns in the United States of America. Every American is entitled to a own a gun, but the laws for having and keeping a gun should be changed and enforced. The Constitution may say the right to bear arms, but it doesn't give one GUIDELINE on the laws itself. We the people (which includes the President of the United States) decides those laws.
Right sure there will be, when that happen in the USA get ready to get you a gun, there will be war.....
Hardcoffeeat6am pfff a war. You are watching way too many movies.
Well try to take my guns and see if you don't get shot, that
what would happen. I know a lot of people that feel the same. I’ll had guns all
my life and Ted Kennedy car has killed more people that any of my guns.
hardcoffeeat6am, and that's why crazies like you should not have firearms. You would shoot anybody touching your guns, even your own relatives.
I would also shoot somone that was raping your family.
No thank you, I can protect my own family just fine.
I brake down your door I have a Gun a 9MM I tell your wife to ge ready, what you going to do as your wife make me happy, pull out a sling shot to protect your family. Don't think this does not also happen each dayin the USA' Don't be dumb, better to have a gun
Google is full of this same story's click if you dare
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2232199/Woman-raped-man-beaten-horrific-home-invasion-18-month-old-child-slept-house.html
Don't think I'd stand there without trying to overpower you. You have a sick and deranged mind. When it comes to protect my family, I could give a rat's ass who's standing in front of me. If I die, so be it but I sure as hell will try all I can to neutralize you by any mean, giving my family a chance to escape and call for help. If I had a gun, with your type of mentality, I'm not sure you would want to put yours down, you'll probably go ape @!$%# and shoot at anything that moves. The second you stepped into my house with a gun, you've already increased the chance of hurting someone by a good amount anyway.
The number of people the own and support gun ownership far,far out weigh the the few low information libs that are against owning guns. This is a stupid argument because of a mentally ill person.
300m guns, and 2m fools that belong to the NRA.
Can you do math, Gumby?
NRA members are a tiny MINORITY!
There are millions and millions of people that own guns that do not belong to the NRA,Like myself.What has that to do with how many gun owners there are in this country, Do the math Gumby Gun owners are a majority. I am suprised you would embarrass yourself like that.
Herron. Are you trying to draw a correlation? There is none numb nuts. LOL
Heron.....Many Americans (more than 2 or 4 million) own guns and don't belong to the NRA. Most of those Americans are the ones rushing to gun stores right now and buying up all the semi auto guns in Cabelas and Walmart. They will be the ones who continue to vote for their pro gun congressmen. How's that for your libtard math?
We need to get America out of wearing the "white hat" for the world and take care of our own.. Get out of the stupid unwinnable wars we're inand stay home...
Protect our children... To hell with rag heads on the other side of the world...
Oh what the heck-I'll take a stab at it:
"YOU'RE CRAZY!!"
Why characterize NRA as "defiant", when they were not on the defensive, and do not need to apologize for being defenders of the Constitution, even if that now is often characterized as politically and socially incorrect?
Will the NRA dingbats explain "Well Regulated Militia" as they love the Constitution so much?
Herron - The Supreme Court has ruled. Why not google those rulings and see why the right has been upheld? What that take time and the ability to read? Or is a quick name call just a lot easier? Either way have a Merry Christmas
Can you imagine an instant Wayne LaPierre being the Commander in Chief of our great nation? You "organized militia" folks would have a good reason to go against a tyranny.
Hnnn - The press paints this with their spin machine and the picture looks life vomit. They can lead any mind-less liberal by the nose.
Fact is there is law-enforcement in my kids schools and has been for years. This is in a small town in Northern Colorado. Why are there officers? Well its the gangs stupid. They not only bring guns. But knifes and fists and other weapons. You can be in Wyoming/Montana/Nebraska/South and North Dakota and all very quickly from this part of the Country.
So there is a lot of drugs and gun running up I-25 and also Denver is a sanctuary city so this is the perfect place to use as a logistical base.
This is a problem that like the hydra has many heads and the press for reasons that defy all logic wants to disarm the population from an open Border and the brutal gangs that run the goods. Human traffic is big as well. It's okay to force kids into prostitution I guess.
More kids were killed this week-end by guns in the cities of this Nation than one Sandy and a LOT more.
Were is that outrage?
It's okay for the African-American and Hispanic communities to live in war zones?
When the press is State-Run they will be going "Opps!"
The NRA chief supports locking up and drugging persons who never committed any crimes. The Second Amendment was written so citizens could fight back against the government when the government chooses to make it necessary. Cops have chosen to get themselves killed trying to take innocent persons to mental institutions.
The same day as the Connecticut rampage, cops in Memphis, Tennessee tried to enforce drug laws, and it's a good thing the drug dealer had a gun, or the cops would have gotten away with it. Tennesseans should have defended liberty with ballots if they didn't want the outvoted minority to defend liberty with bullets.
Mr. Peter is aptly named, no reflection on the saint, just the "peter". He is simply trying to stuff his peter down our throats but almost nobody is willing to swallow.
thats no what she said......
Hope he stands his ground. He may sound cruel, but he is absolutely correct. These politicians are using guns because they would lose votes if they focused on the real cause for these shootings which is all the social apathy they have instilled in the general public and now runs through our society. And people would much rather blame an inanimate object as a scapegoat rather than to look at their own behaviors and outcasting of people and marginalizing everyone into separate groups and boxes. FBI shows these weapons have almost a flat line at the bottom of the chart since the late 80s. And gun violence and murders have fallen down to the same levels as in history since the 80s. Except for a slight tick up during this administration. And politicians can also blame mentally ill people who cannot defend themselves. Although 99% of people with actual mental disease are more afraid of others and completely harmless to anyone else. We all have our pyschopath killer visions from tv crime shows, and hearing about them displaying violent behaviors when tied up, placed in jacket, locked in padded rooms and shot up with drugs while being wrestled by teams of giant people forcing them against their will... but hey, you would have to be nutty not to fight back at that point. Get it? There is a big difference between mental illness, and becoming mentally disturbed. I can take the most mild mannered accountant in the world, and given a few weeks of setting gears turning in his head without outside interaction, I can make them a raving lunatic. Is that mental illness?? Well folks, have a happy holiday running around your neighborhoods with your torches forcing gun owners and people with mental illness or hey, who just don't act the way you want them too, off to the lynching tree or burning stake. Feel good about yourselves. The media and administration will knowing they won over your emotions and not your intelligence once again. Oh well.
The Democratic party is wayy to feminized...
How could any MAN be a democrat is beyond me...
Prissy men and manly women... That's the modern democratic party
Yawn... the modern democrat party is not like that at all. The modern republican party..
Greed, GOLD, GOD and GUNS. Oh and legitimate rape is acceptable.
From the clown that needs a metal penis to feel like a man!
That's funny!
Democratic men are limpwristed urbanites
http://badmouth.net/top-five-republican-gay-sex-scandals/
Read about your republican limp wrists..
Yawn
@herron
that metal penis.........
you realy want one
sheeple.........
the Bell will toll
thomasward00, are you saying that being pro-gun or pro-weapon makes you a man and a republican?
Its about time.... the only rape I have seen forgiven that the public is aware of, are all those committed down at the old OWS protests. Those folks weren't GOP were they?
Uh oh. Truth hurts. Go ask your 60 year old mommy who still has to work to support you to come and fluff your pillow for you.
The NRA is populated by reactionary simpletons, so it may require more gray matter than all 4 million of you combined, but just once, try being part of the solution, and put your support behind something that both makes sense and keeps our kids safe.
Is your gun really more important than the life of your child?
If so, so much for the family-values-flag-waving-"ah live in Amurka" drivvel that you no doubt embrace.
The national debate on this should be far and well beyond (and here, picture a character akin to Disney's Goofy saying the following) "ya'all ain't pryin' ma-gun outter mah hayands".
For example, who needs a weapon with an oversized magazine? It has no lawful purpose. None. Even if it did, the cost to the rest of us far outweighs any plausible benefit.
If the NRA continues to oppose sensible solutions, tax the crap out of gun owners to fund safety for schools and kids. If you want the privilege to own a weapon that holds a hundred rounds of ammunition, then you will pay, and pay dearly, for my absolute, undeniable right to ensure the safety of my kids at school.
Require a mental exam for all gun owners; make it a felony, with a lengthy federal prison sentence -- and no possibility of parole -- to own or possess a weapon if you fail the exam.
And ban ridiculously stupid weapons that have the firepower equivalent to a small army.
How does a group of 4 million members write the gun laws for a nation of 300 million?
The same way one @!$%# at the white house write the gun laws for a nation of 300 million, there may be only 4 million NRA members, but in a month that will be 6 million and keep moving up........
it's now or never for the gop,lapierre,and boehner...avoid a civil war again,and gun control is better than a total ban....technology will make weapons more lethal and the slaughter will increase exponentially if you don't do something....soon the lunatics will use assault weapons in drive by shootings and more will die needlessly, the gop nuts better wake up ,this is a civilian society not fort bragg!!!!!
That's exactly what we need to do.Make NRA an issue and support candidates who defy it.We need to defeat everybody who stands with the NRA, even if they're spineless democrats.We need to donate to candidates that publicly speak out against assault rifles, much like mayor Bloomberg did.
Iam sick and tired of people claiming that guns don't kill, and if people have guns, they'd protect themselves.Just ask the 3 Pittsburg police officers who were killed 4 years ago by a right wing idiot who thought Obama was coming to take their guns.Ask the Fairfax county police ( Northern Virginia ) if their guns helped them much when a gunman walked in the police station and killed some officers.
We all saw on tv the masked gunmen in LA, who robbed a bank and with assault rifles and waged a battle in the streets with cops.We saw how little the police and swat team could do against the assault rifles, they were outgunned, enough is enough.
I believe that people have the right to bear arms and defend themselves,I have hand guns myself, but I don't for a second, believe they should have assault rifles and semis.If the second amendment is absolute, then why not have the right to carry, explosives, bombs, or even nuclear bombs? Where does it specifically say in the constitution that we can't have them?The argument that we need bigger guns to protect us from "possible" dictatorship is just stupid.No guns are gonna protect us from a military that want to take over, and by now, I think we're pretty safe from having a hostile, dictatorial government.
That leaves "hunting". If you need a semi automatic to hunt, well, you're not a hunter, you're a loser.A true hunter needs one bullet at a time, like a sniper.Or even use a bow and arrow, not M-16 type rifle.
Unfortunately, we have people now who despise others that don't think like them.People who think that the others are the enemy.We've heard it in campaigns, "the real America, America haters, we're losing America, and this is not the America I grew up in.Until these people start realizing that we're all in together, and we're all American, we need to do everything we possibly can to ban assault rifles.
I wouldn't say you are crazy, you know exactly what you are doing. And that is being a high paid shill for the gun makers so they can sell as many guns as possible and you can get as much money as you can by defending them. Crazy? No. Repulsive? Yes.
Why back down or compromise when you have a good chunk of Government in your back pocket...
I firmly believe that if Adam Lanza did not have access to guns he would have found another way to carry out his intent. For instance, its incredibly easy to learn how to make a homemade bomb and get the materials required. What happened was a tremendous tragedy, and my heart goes out to the families, not least because I have two children of my own. But even though guns enabled Adam Lanza to commit this atrocity, the problem is not guns or gun control. The problem, I believe, is how America has evolved socially. I believe the issue is that America has failed its children by letting family values erode to the point where some develop in emotional isolation, and the rare few carry this isolation into adulthood where it evolves into feelings of hatred, revenge, self loathing, etc. Just look at Middle Eastern and Asian culture. How many school shootings have been reported there? Granted, they have different problems, like suicide bombers, which are the result of a completely different problem. But their family values are strong, and people grow into adulthood relatively well-adjusted.
I believe that if the federal government put the money and effort into promoting family values that would otherwise go to furthering gun legislation, we would see fewer of these shootings in the future. I'm not against gun control, I just think that guns are NOT at the very roots of this problem.
They have armed guards at the friggin Social Security office,and every friggin government building.
They sure had no trouble coming up with the money to protect their a$$es.
But they hang the kids out to dry,no money,too dangerous to have guns in schools,something bad might happen.
It already did.
Are you willing to pay higher taxes to have more security guards, police officers, whatever, in our public schools or not?
Often those armed guards are the result of CC carry laws in states. The gun nuts want to bring their guns to a SS office when they are having a dispute.
They're the result of the Oklahoma bombing...jacka$$
As opposed to the mentally challenged nuts that that walk into SS offices??
typical libs, do you have some stats to back that Herron?
Didnt think so, talking out of your a$$
Saying that the "NRA is not thoughtful and compassionate" is showing that some people clearly do not understand the reason behind the Second Amendment! Owning firearms is not designed out of compassion, but the need for civilians to protect themselves from criminals because the government simply cannot protect you from everything!
The main purpose of the 2nd amendment is a buffer against tyranny from the government. ALL governments gobble power until at some point they become a dictatorship. America very well might have become a dictatorship already had it not been for the 2nd amendment.
pretty sure there was an 'armed gaurd' at columbine....not sure it helped so much
The policy at Columbine at the time was for security to remain outside the building and call for help. They engaged the shooters outside, but once they went inside the security officers stayed outside and waited for help.
That policy has since been changed. Blame the people that wrote the policy, not the officers that followed it.
The "armed guard" at Columbine was not trained to respond to what had happened. That was early in the mass drugging of children program, and we had no idea how bad the drugs the schools fed the children would damage them, or how much these damaged children would seek revenge.
There are at least 6 armed secret service agents at Obama's daughters school on a daily basis. Seems to be keeping people away from there just fine. Arm the good to keep the bad out!!
How many Gun stores have been rob in the last 25 years?
Even the not so smart person of the world knows that well they may have a gun. I’ll
take the 7-11
One attempted robbery that I can think of. There were even several marked police cars parked in front of the store. Some criminals desires override their reasoning.
Excuse me, everyone is calling you crazy.
There seems to be a real disconnect going on here. How is it that people who insist they must be able to have and keep any gun they want to protect them from the government so on board with the idea of putting an armed government agent in every school?
And just how is there a "disconnect"? Did anyone at any point in time say the government should be disarmed? Or have less arms?