The National Rifle Association’s executive vice president on Sunday dismissed Democrats’ renewed push for gun control as nonsensical.
“What we’re doing with this debate on the Hill right now, it’s like they’re trying to stop a freight train with a piece of Kleenex,” Wayne LaPierre told CBS’ John Dickerson.
The NRA leader argued that imposing new restrictions on firearm purchases will not stop self-radicalized individuals like the shooter in Orlando from buying weapons to carry out these kinds of attacks.
“They don’t care about the law. Laws didn’t stop them in Boston. Laws didn’t stop them in San Bernardino, where you had every type of a gun control law you could have, and they didn’t stop them in Paris, where people can’t even own guns,” he said.
LaPierre added that the “bad guys we’re facing” don’t pause to say, “‘Oh gosh, they passed a law. Oh gosh, I don’t think I could do it.'”
“The fact is we need vigilance, we need preparedness, we need a full-court press on personal protection. We need to be able to protect ourselves,” he said.
Lawmakers in the Senate are set to vote Monday on a series of gun control proposals. The effort is being led by Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Chuck Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California.
