In the aftermath of the Parkland, Florida school massacre, officials of the National Rifle Association (NRA) spent a few days assessing the situation.
Then, yesterday, at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s Executive Vice President and de facto leader, mounted a full throated “no holds barred” attack on the NRA’s enemies.
Here is the link:
Now an enemy for LaPierre is anyone who advocates what LaPierre
contemptuously and dismissively calls “more gun control” and when LaPierre defends his position by attacking his “enemies” he spares no one.
Yesterday at CPAC, he began with these thoughts – “As usual, the opportunists wasted not one second to exploit tragedy for political gain…they hate the NRA, they hate the 2nd Amendment, they hate individual freedom…The elites don’t care, not one whit, about America’s school system and school children. Their goal is to eliminate the 2nd Amendment and our firearms freedom so they can eradicate all individual freedom.”
Who are these “opportunists?” Who are these “elites?” Who are these people who don’t care one whit for America’s school children” and want to “eradicate all individual freedom?”
One is David Hogg, age 17, another is Sophie Whiting, age 17, another is Tyra Herman, age 19,students of Parkland, Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. They survived the day seventeen of their class mates were murdered before their eyes.
On Wednesday, one hundred of these young surviving “elites” descended on the Florida Legislature to advocate more control of the purchase and use of deadly firearms, particularly firearms like the AR-15 assault weapon that killed their classmates.
The day before, the GOP controlled House of the Florida Legislature had rejected a move by Democrats to have legislation heard that would ban military style assault weapons like the AR-15.
Ah, the Democrats.
In his speech to CPAC, the NRA’s LaPierre had words for the Democrats.
He said they are “A party that is now infested with saboteurs who don’t believe in Capitalism, don’t believe in our Constitution, don’t believe in Freedom and don’t believe in America as we know it.”
That is a view of the Democrats LaPierre may have a difficult time selling to the survivors of the Parkland high school shooting.
The Florida Times Union newspaper quoted Delaney Tarr, a senior at the high school, as saying of the Florida Legislature’s refusal to debate a bill to ban assault weapons “to shoot down a bill like that is absolutely abhorrent. That disgusts me and it disgusts my peers, because we know what we went through and we know this needs to be changed.”
All across the Country students, young people, and their parents and other adults are mounting protests of the NRA’s monolithic position.
They are calling for “more gun control.”
And the politicians are beginning to listen, understanding that in the face of these continuing gun massacres this movement appears to be gaining strength and speed, no longer sure to be checked by LaPierre’s hard nosed over-the-top rhetoric or the NRA’s political campaign contributions.
For Wayne LaPierre, who has led the NRA for three decades, it is the fight of his life.
The saavy defender of all things Gun vs the surving kids of the Parkland High Scool and their allies, young and old, all across America.
The wily “gunfighter” always before has been able to best his opponents but this time could be different.
This time he could lose to the kids and their idea of “more gun control.”
For it was the French novelist and writer Victor Hugo who once observed:
“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”