Last night, if you were watching the Super Bowl in the Washington, D.C., area, you saw a rather powerful ad on gun policy in the break coming out of halftime. The spot, sponsored by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, urges policymakers to approve a universal background check, and features "America, the Beautiful" against the backdrop of young children.
About 12 hours earlier, Americans could see the National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre on "Fox News Sunday," making a very different kind of argument.
"I make the same thing during the campaign, when he said to people I will not take away your rifle, shotgun, handgun. They leafletted the country with flyers like this, 'Obama is not going to take your gun, Obama is going to protect gun rights.' And, now, he's trying to take away all three."
For the record, there is nothing in President Obama's proposals to prevent gun violence that "takes away" Americans rifles, shotguns, and handguns. LaPierre presumably knows this, but told viewers the opposite anyway.
And therein lies the problem: the policy debate has become increasingly strained because one of the most influential lobbying groups in Washington relies on arguments based on evidence the organization has simply made up.
LaPierre also argued, for example, that every school child in America faces the same kind of threats as the president's children. That's plainly false -- even Chris Wallace told him he was being "ridiculous" -- but the NRA spokesperson doesn't mind making arguments like these with a straight face.
On universal background checks, which the NRA used to support before it's complete radicalization, LaPierre added that administration officials will "turn this universal check on the law-abiding into a universal registry of law-abiding people."
When Wallace noted that officials "absolutely do not" want such a registry, and no one has ever proposed such a thing, LaPierre concluded, "You cannot trust these" people.
It was an important argument from the NRA. In LaPierre's mind, it doesn't matter what officials say their position is, and it doesn't matter what policymakers include in legislation. What really matters is the paranoid imagination of Wayne LaPierre -- who apparently can read minds and ascertain what Democrats secretly have in mind.
And to a certain degree, that's between the NRA and its membership. If LaPierre wants to make stuff up, he's free to do so. If he wants to spend his time coming up with bizarre, paranoid scenarios, that's his choice. If the NRA wants to try to scare the bejesus out of its supporters with hyperbolic nonsense, a fool and his money are easily parted.
But in this case, LaPierre expects federal law in the United States to reflect his deceptive rants and overactive imagination, which is far more difficult to swallow.
Towards the end of the interview, the NRA spokesperson added, "I think the majority of the American public sees through this and want the current laws enforced. They don't want more laws imposed on what is only going to be the law-abiding and they see that how little all of this has to do with keeping our kids safe."
The guy actually seems to believe the American mainstream agrees with the NRA. Add it to the list of things LaPierre said that have no basis in reality.
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Those rocket launchers and RPG's that a few recalcitrant "survivalists" have brought in to gun buy back programs since Sandy Hook? Yeah, those aren't covered by our Constitution. Limits to our "freedoms" exist everywhere, and are generally accepted by most reasonable Americans as the price to pay for a stable and relatively peaceful country. But the NRA and the gun nuts apparently see the United States as the worst nation in the world, because they have no qualms about trashing our government and trampling over the true meaning of our founding documents. Instead of embracing widely supported common sense reforms, these terrorists fight o turn back even the minimal amount of gun regulations we now have, demanding the right to own anything our military does. What are they planning? - progressive
What are they planning with all these weapons?
They're planning the defense for when Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi invade your home and beat up your family.
For some, lies are obvious. For others, lies told by one of their respected leaders is considered to be truth. Lies-truth are all mixed in to the debate. Remember the little boy tending sheep, who cried "Wolf"? The people rushed out ready to battle the wolf. But there was no wolf. When he kept crying wolf, fewer responded. When a real wolf showed up, ne one responded to his cries. The NRA has cried wolf for years. Now the people are not listening. And "we the people" will get assault weapons banned because we will realize that the NRA doesn't have the power to rally the troops in defense of the gun makers.
Both Wayne LaPierre and his good buddy Ted Nugent got draft deferments during Vietnam for "mental issues." They thought they were suckering the system, but all they did was prove they've both been crazy for a very long time.
Big patriots: ol' Wayne turned down his chance to go to Vietnam and "kill anything that moves." But Nugent tops that: he buys old, worn-out, de-fanged and de-clawed circus animals and then "hunts" them with his bow and arrow.
They're both cowards.
LaPierre presumably knows this, but told viewers the opposite anyway.
Yes, he romneyed, didn't he?
It would be between this @sshole & the NRA members, IF he was not continuously given a platform by the corporately owned media. As is, his lies and rhetoric affect much more than the NRA members.
Does Lapierre think NRA members should be able to purchase Apache helicopters also? Or how about land mines? Or howitzers maybe? After all the constitution does'nt say rifles and sidearms only. I realize this is kinda dumb, but so are his arguments.
He cares nothing about the buyers' rights. The sellers, however...
umm, fyi, land mines have been outlawed by international treaty.
my bad, that was the first step on a slippery slope to take away ALL guns.
So has torture but that didn't stop Bush and company.
I think that citizens have the right to own guns.
I think that people with mental problems that could use guns to hurt other people should NOT have guns.
I think that some of the people squawking the loudest about how they have the right to own whatever guns they want ......... well, they just sound nuts and maybe the shouldn't have ANY guns.
I agree with maphi...LaPierre turns the wheel of insanity even more by trying to make
people paranoid about losing their guns. I think we should take a look at Australia. They solved gun violence and saved many lives by taking away the right to own a gun period !!!
Somewhere close to half of American's appear to have mental problems, those who believe LaPierre, those who watch Faux News, those who thoughtlessly voted for "can't keep my story straight" Romney, and the rest of us who are living with the consequences of this "mindlessly manipulated and altered universe." The argument that they make is that they should have whatever they want, because they want it-consequences be damned and it is a mental health issue when a person acts without regard to the effect of consequences. They are creating a moral dystopia of biblical proportion and consequence-without reason, judgement, or concern for anything but their personal interests and greed, rationalizing the use of the constitution to make slaves of free people, and justifying chaos as freedom. It's psychopathic and half of Americans are buying it, while the other half are being made crazy watching it. The welfare of the nation, and it's people are at stake, but of course, that's welfare and they hate, hate, hate, welfare.
How far out on the limb can the NRA go?
Hopefully far enough to break the limb on which they're standing.
In Wayne's perverted spirit world, God runs the gun shows, and he wants all of us to be armed to the teeth to make heaven a better place!
Wayne LaPierre is unhinged, and I am embarrassed to call him a fellow American! -Kevo
No, LaPierre isn't unhinged. He is doing everything he can to keep his paycheck from the big gun manufacturers and he will do ANYTHING to keep that paycheck coming in. That is all LaPierre cares about!! He could give a rat's ass about the 2nd amendment or anything else.
Who ARE unhinged are the people he's stirred up with his "fear" messages. Expect the "fear" messages to get even stranger the more desperate LaPierre becomes. His "paycheck" is quickly slipping away....
It's all about the money, kev. He'll say anything to stay in the good graces of gun manufacturers, even if it means stirring the gun nuts into a lather.
WWGS? (Who Would God Shoot?)
My fear is one of those gun nuts is going to get a bit too lathered up and go on an unhinged shooting spree killing innocents. Who do we place the blame on then?
You know the NRA is good at placing the blame on everything else except guns and themselves.
LaPierre says what he thinks he can get away with.
Once upon a time, before Romney, Fox News and talk radio, back when we had journalists and folks people respected producing the news, LaPierre would never have tried his argument. He would have been pillored for lying. Now lying ala Mitt Romney is SOP. Nobody in the media will call you out and if somebody like Rachel Maddow does your people won't hear because news, especially cable news, is balkanized to an extraordinary degree.
Has anybody asked LaPierre about the NRA's previous position? Why did they change? Maybe because these days the technology is so simple "its too hard to require instant background checks for all gun purchases" isn't a legitimate excuse.
cable news, is balkanized to an extraordinary degree.
Ron...love that term . Sums it up succinctly
Balkanized and concentrated. 80% of all media is owned by a few .1%ers. People in some parts of the country only get the FoxNews type message. So that is where the social media and person to person contact are needed. This approach got Obama re-elected and it will get assault weapons banned. One target audience: pro-life parents.
Aren't there laws against people who yell,"Fire!" in a crowded theatre? Isn't it about time someone arrested this jerk?
If you watched the Superbowl- or any TV- you see high production ads, with lots of computer generated excitement and violence. At the cost of $4 million a minute!
Smith & Wesson and Colt and Glock have the money to produce similar ads for their products.
Only problem is, I doubt that the networks would run them. A scene from Reservoir Dogs? Goodfellas? Pulp Fiction?
So they turn instead to their favorite sales tool: paranoia, as purveyed by their marketing arm, the NRA.
LaPierre's reasoning is perfectly clear and understandable if you look at it from his perspective.
Obama's proposals actually DO take guns away from people...Criminals, Fugitives, and the mentally deranged...Who are also people who happen to buy a LOT of guns!
If you think about it by closing loopholes and stopping straw purchases (never mind that with fewer guns on the street the need for personal security would theoretically go down, so the gun industry stands to loose a LOT of money...
and it's obvious that to LaPierre Loosing Money=Bad
His argument isn't against safety or for "Rights" its about "restraint of trade".
"lose"?
Loosing a lot of money would be the opposite of losing a lot of money, yes?
Oops Sorry typo
President Obama's observation, about how segments of our population cling to religion and guns, appears to have been quite accurate. Religious zealots and Second Amendment extremists share certain traits, and few would be surprised if the two groups overlapped.
Both groups simplify ideas found in revered sources (Bible, Constitution) and give these simplified ideas literal and absolute supremacy, regardless of consequences in the real world. People in either (or both) groups can thus impact society by imposing their views on everyone, in the name of their allegedly virtuous adherence to the revered source. They claim to be extremists because they're pure and virtuous.
Society tends to dismiss such people or groups as crackpots. The most successful adaptation to such disparagement is not to deny it, but to accept and re-direct it. Both groups indirectly acknowledge that they're crackpots, but crackpots of a very special kind. Religious zealots and Second Amendment extremists depict themselves as small groups of persecuted loyalists, devoted to protecting sacred principles from powerful mainstream groups who want to destroy those principles. This position serves an important function. They simplified ideas in the first place because complexity and uncertainty, especially uncertainty, made them frightened, and therefore angry. Depicting themselves as persecuted martyrs gives them a superficial justification for their rage, which they tell eveyone, especially themselves, comes from the fact that they're more virtuaous than most, because theyr'e defending themselves, and sacred principles, from destruction by evil forces. This paradigm covers religious fanatics who want to force women to give birth against their will (the fanatics say they do this out of compassion and devotion to life), and gun extremists who claim to want murderous weapons of war so they can protect freedom and the constitution.
THIS IS LAPIERRE'S BASE CONSTITUENCY (no, I haven't forgotten my original point), and he has to keep them afraid and angry, so they can keep believing that they're in danger because they're virtuous and loyal to sacred principles. He has no choice but to claim that moderate regulation equals confiscation. When that dilusion weakens, he loses everything.
We know of two people that are against background checks...Wayne LaPierre and the guy Wayne LaPierre sees when he looks at a mirror
Money talks, and money sells guns and ammo to anyone they damned well please too! Ain't life grand Miss Dee?
I know all this debate about gun control is good for ratings people are passionate on both sides. They always say gun violence I'm sorry violence is violence. A gun a hammer a knife a sword what difference does it make. You simply can't outlaw every potential weapon on the face of the planet. I think it's about time we talk about the real cause of violence in most cases mental illness. All this debate over guns is just a waste of time.
What difference does it make if someone uses a gun or a sword? If the guy walking through Sandy Hook school only had a sword could he have killed so many so fast? Plus, someone with a sword would be easier to distract then someone with a gun. People would hide from someone with a gun but would walk near someone with a sword.
Duluthian12
I try to keep my post short and simple I guess it wasn't simple enough for you. Like I said you can't outlaw every potential weapon on the planet I could make a longer list but how about fertilizer bomb you know the one that killed all those kids at the FBI building. You need to do something about the crazy people focus on the real problem. I hope now I've made it simple enough for you.
The majority of people in our jails and prisons are mentally ill and need treatment, not punishment. It is as if we are living in the Dark Ages. The Bible thumpers think the criminal is possessed by Satan and needs redeeming. The white colors crooks think they deserve special treatment because they dress better and can con more easily. The private prison just want to make more money. The elected judges want to look like crime fighters. The lawyers want more money. Uneducated idiots don't think mental illness exists and that it is just an excuse for bad behavior. We need money for local mental health centers, not bigger jails for profit. We are living in two Americas. One America is in the 21st Century, the other is still between the 16th and 18th. Locking a deeply disturbed mental patient in a small cell for months on end only creates for insanity in their troubled minds.
Lapierre keeps making the argument that the Feds should enforce the laws already on the books. That's all well and good, but the NRA has fought that from happening too. From gutting the funding for ATF and other agencies with regards to gun law enforcement to prohibition on computerizing records and databases, the NRA has, so far, been successful at keeping the current gun laws from ever being fully enforced.
My guess is that, if one of the proposals being put forward was to provide funding, modernization of records, etc so that existing guns laws can be enforced, the NRA would find another paranoid reason to oppose existing gun laws as well.
LaPierre's "argument" that we should "enforce the laws already on the books" is a smoke-screen. It is an "after-the-fact" solution to the problem of gun deaths.
Virginia Tech, Columbine, Aurora, Tuscon, Fort Bliss, Oak Creek, and the Newtown shootings (among so many others) were done by people who had "legal" access to weapons - they weren't criminals before the shootings. Sure, you can throw the live ones in jail now, but it doesn't stop what they did or bring back the people they killed.
Don't be distracted by that non-sense!!
There is no such thing as an assault weapon. There are traditional shotguns, rifles, and handguns that are more powerful than what some claim is an "assault" weapon. All weapons are "assault" weapons. Both sides, again, are playing politics with the rhetoric.
RobDon,
You are playing word games. All of us understand what the common meaning of "assault weapons" is. Do all weapons "assault"? Of course. But that doesn't mean that society can't decide for itself which weapons to isolate out and call "assault weapons".
Do you think "cat burglers" are cats? Or when you ask for an ice cream cone, you are going to get ice coated with cream inside a cone?
oncearepublican, my point is that the Left are playing word games. That is why they have shifted to more often use the words "military style weapons" because there is no such thing or a common definition of an assault weapon. You don't disagree with this, do you?
"Assualt weapons" sounds bad so that is why they use it. Many of the features now labels as assault add-ons do nothing to make the gun more leathal, yet banning them are suppose to somehow magically cut down on gun violence.
If asked do you want to ban assualt weapons many will say yes. But asked, do you think it is smart to outlaw this gun because it has this type of handle versus this type of handle and is less powerful than this weapon which is legal? They would say, that doesn't make sense.
@Sofferclease.....good synopsis IMO. how many posters read the front page story in the Washington Post yesterday which featured two gun enthusiasts who are right in LaPierre's wheelhouse of fear. Forced myself to read the whole article, well educated, wealthy guy, the main character. Both guys totally warped in their thinking. Terrified of guns being confiscated, armed at all times, hyper vigilant and convinced that the second amendment is meant as a bulwark against tyranny as well as for self protection. Frankly, I found both of them frightening because of their constant vigllence. It seemed to me that it would not take much for them to react to a perceived dangerous situation. Recommend reading to get sense of the mindset. Not a surprise for most of you probably, but pretty alarming to me and I can't help thinking that electing our African-American president has amped up the number of these folks and their enablers on FOX and loon radio, not to mention many irresponsible elected in congress, Mitch McConnell,
Civilized, mentally healthy adults understand the need for and will respect limits and boundaries......mentally unhealthy, petulant children....not so much!
If "they" do protest so strongly, the way they are, it almost seems to me that maybe there is some kind of a bigger coverup going on....just a hunch, or gut feeling, but what if they are selling guns en-masse to other countries, like to the cartels, or the mafia, or the Taliban, or even Bashir al Assad, or the KKK!?!!!? Am I too far off base, or is there a bigger story here?
“...life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...” - Thomas Jefferson ~ the Declaration of Independence.
“I do not think the composition of that foundational phrase was an accident,...I do not think the order of those important words was haphazard or casual. The liberty of any person to own a military-style assault weapon and a high-capacity magazine and keep them in their home is second to the right of my son to his life.” - David Wheeler (father of one of the Sandy Hook school shooting victim, Ben Wheeler, spoke at the last of four public hearings by the Connecticut legislature’s Bipartisan Task Force on Violence and Public Safety.
David Wheeler's testimony was covered at the Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell and I'm sad that it has not gotten much more coverage any where else. In my opinion he gave the most eloquent argument for gun safety ever. Too bad (but sadly not surprising) he and a whole bunch of other family member of the victims was not one to give their testimony in the Senate and House hearing on the matter.
It is just sad that the people screaming about their "constitutional right" to bear arm never really bother to read and try to understand the whole Constitution at all. Or if they do, they simply choose not to acknowledge it.
Make him the the co-defendant in every murder committed by a gun !!!!! He will spent the rest of his life defending himself and the laws will change rapidly !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Background checks for all gun purchases seems like a no brainer. But think about it , we gave just as much resistance to car seat belts and no-smoking areas, not so very long ago. The piano played version of America the Beautiful will forever more remind me of the Newtown Massacre, and I will cry. But if we save one life by increased vigilence and common sense, maybe we are growing in awareness to the many dangers that beset us. I could have liked the 1989 version of Wayne LaPierre. So much for sticking to your principles, very Romneyesque I would say. And they can't figure out why they lost to this day, amazing.