NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre’s name may have been kept off the schedule at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference in the wake of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting, but that didn’t stop him from addressing the real issues that face our nation: the creeping rise of socialism through the Democratic Party.
LaPierre briefly touched upon a point made by President Trump earlier on Thursday about protecting our children at school by providing guns to “adept teachers with military or special training experience.”
I never said “give teachers guns” like was stated on Fake News @CNN & @NBC. What I said was to look at the possibility of giving “concealed guns to gun adept teachers with military or special training experience – only the best. 20% of teachers, a lot, would now be able to
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018
….immediately fire back if a savage sicko came to a school with bad intentions. Highly trained teachers would also serve as a deterrent to the cowards that do this. Far more assets at much less cost than guards. A “gun free” school is a magnet for bad people. ATTACKS WOULD END!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018
….History shows that a school shooting lasts, on average, 3 minutes. It takes police & first responders approximately 5 to 8 minutes to get to site of crime. Highly trained, gun adept, teachers/coaches would solve the problem instantly, before police arrive. GREAT DETERRENT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018
However, a large portion of his speech was dedicated to attacking Democrats (and the FBI), specifically Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, and Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, for wanting to completely abolish the Second Amendment through a socialist smear campaign of the NRA and putting politics over everything else.
“Socialism is a movement that loves a smear,” LaPierre told the crowd. “Socialism feeds off of manipulated victims.”
This came after his colleague NRA Spokesperson Dana Loesch said that the media loves mass shootings, saying, “Crying white mothers are ratings gold to you and many in the legacy media.”
LaPierre continued to tell the crowd that they “should be anxious and […] frightened” about the prospect of Democrats regaining control of the White House and Congress.
“If they seize power […] our American freedoms could be lost and our country will be changed forever,” LaPierre warned. “The first to go will be the Second Amendment.”
It’s an odd pivot for LaPierre to make considering that President Trump might actually have more success pushing for gun control in Congress than his predecessor. Of course, these are proposals that LaPierre and Trump agree on.
The debate over gun control has been rather stagnant ever since the federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004. While individual state legislatures have moved to implement and enforce tighter restrictions on firearms (see: Maryland), there hasn’t been much activity on the federal level. Not even the shooting at Sandy Hook in 2012 could get Congress to reach a consensus on passing any restrictive measures on firearms.
President Trump might be able to get done in his first two years in office what former President Barack Obama couldn’t get done in eight. Trump wants to reform comprehensive background checks and address mental health, raise the minimum age of purchasing firearms to 21, and ban bump stocks.
With the backing of a Republican president, we might actually see Congress come together and move in the direction of reducing the wave of highly frequent mass shootings in this country. Yet LaPierre’s attack on Democrats for being “socialist” and the FBI for their rogue leadership seems to strike the wrong note in the wake of such a tragedy like Parkland.
Siraj Hashmi is a commentary video editor and writer for the Washington Examiner.
