Unwavering NRA: 'It's not guns, it's criminals'

The National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre. Photo / AP

An unwavering National Rifle Association has said that not a single new gun regulation was needed to prevent mass shootings such as the one at a Connecticut elementary school, that "a media machine" relishes blaming the gun industry for each new attack and that a White House task force on gun violence may try to undermine the Second Amendment.

"Look, a gun is a tool. The problem is the criminal," the CEO of the nation's largest gun-rights lobby said in a nationally broadcast television interview, mocking supporters of gun controls.

Wayne LaPierre hardly backed down from his comments Friday, when the NRA broke its weeklong silence on the shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in a staged event billed as a news conference - though questions weren't allowed.

While the group had promised "meaningful contributions" to ensure that such an attack never happened again, LaPierre's assertion that guns and police officers in all schools are what will stop the next killer drew widespread scorn, and even some NRA supporters in Congress are publicly disagreeing with the group.

Rep. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., called it "the most revolting, tone deaf statement I've ever seen." A headline from the New York Post summarized LaPierre's initial presentation before reporters with the headline: "Gun Nut! NRA loon in bizarre rant over Newtown."

LaPierre told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that only those armed guards and police would make kids safe, and that a culture of violence popularized by the entertainment industry - movies, music, video games - was responsible for senseless shootings.


He asked Congress for money to put a police officer in every school, and the NRA would coordinate a national effort to put former military and police offers in schools as volunteer guards.

The group will oppose any new gun restrictions on Capitol Hill.

"You want one more law on top of 20,000 laws, when most of the federal gun laws we don't even enforce," he said.

Lock up violent criminals and get the mentally ill the treatment they need, LaPierre said.

"The average guy in the country values his freedom, doesn't believe the fact he can own a gun is part of the problem, and doesn't like the media and all these high profile politicians blaming him, and every time a tragedy" occurs.



NRA officials, he said, "have been willing to deal with every possible cause of gun violence, except guns. They're right that there's a problem for our society - how do you spot a child or a person who is troubled before they become a killer? What's the influence of violence in our entertainment culture on people? But it's obviously also true that the easy availability of guns, including military style assault weapons, is a contributing factor, and you can't keep that off the table. I had hoped they'd come to the table and say, everything is on the table."

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said LaPierre is "so extreme and so tone deaf that he actually helps the cause of us passing sensible gun legislation in the Congress. Look, he blames everything but guns: movies, the media, President Obama, gun-free school zones. You name it, and the video games, he blames them."



Given the NRA's stand on new rules, Lieberman said that "what this does mean is that the kind of new regulation of guns that President Obama and Vice President Biden and a lot people would like to see enacted early next year is not going to happen easily. It's going to be a battle. But the president, I think, and vice president, are really ready to lead the fight. It's going to take the American people getting organized, agitated, and talking to their members of Congress."

LaPierre blamed "a media machine in this country that wants to blame guns every time something happens. I know there's an anti-Second Amendment industry in this country." He also that "you can't legislate morality. Legislation works on the sane. Legislation works on the law-abiding."

The NRA plans to develop an emergency response program that would include using volunteers from the group's 4.3 million members to help guard children, and has named former Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., as national director of the school program.











"So when they go through the national instant-check system, and they go to try to screen out one of those lunatics, the records are not even in the system," LaPierre said.

- AP

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