Let’s be honest. Nothing David Keane or Wayne LaPierre could have said this morning — short of announcing they’re disbanding the behemoth gun rights group and donating all accumulated funds to the Joyce Foundation and the Brady Campaign — would have satisfied the anti-gun forces lining up in Congress to try to roll back Second Amendment rights or the members of the fourth estate who provide a convenient echo chamber for Second Amendment opponents everywhere. As such, the sampling of tweets accumulated at twitchy.com and other Interwebz sites shouldn’t come as any surprise. So if LaPierre’s looking for a sign of how successful (or not) his presentation and proposal were, the hail of eggs and rotten vegetables sailing his way from pols, journos and members of the entertainment community are probably as accurate an contra-indicator as he’ll find.

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69 COMMENTS

  1. Am I evil incarnate? I hope not. But then I belong to the NRA, a group that promotes marksmanship by safe, responsible, law abiding citizens.

    I am evil incarnate because i own weapons, have an interest in history and politics. Because i am a blue collar worker who pays his taxes, contributes to my community.

    I am evil incarnate because I dont think abuse of mind altering substances is a good thing for society. I question the rapid movement of social mores and its effects upon our children.

    I am evil incarnate because i have prepared, modestly for all forms of disaster, including man made contingencies that might not stay overseas.

    If I am evil incarnate, then so be it. I would like to see how goodness and light copes with the real world. Oh Yeah, we might yet see that.

    “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” T.J.

  2. Lets see, free training to help protect our kids. Where is the anger coming from? It can’t be that Danny Devito climbing up a ladder & punching King Kong in the mouth was a bad idea? You bradys don’t like guns? Well now you got some more, Randy

  3. I hope things cool down over the weekend. A Facebook friend, with whom I’ve been having a productive and stimulating debate about the framework for 2A rights and how it applies to modern society, posted this gem after the press conference:

    NRA = Noxious Right-wing Assholes

    Sigh. Let’s hope that the NRA really is kicking ass in their behind-the-scenes lobbying. One of my favorite stories from today was about the NRA’s clout in elections, and it had a quote from a Republican that got primaried out because she came down on the wrong side of the NRA.

  4. To paraphrase WL; ‘the federal government does not have the moral and legal right to tell us that we cannot defend our children’. That call to protect defenseless and innocent children seems moral and righteous to me.

    • He didn’t really spend anytime talking gun control. The main emphasis besides kicking out the anti gunner nut jobs, seemed to me to be focused on protecting schools. He also pointed out other contributing factors.
      Simply put any talk of gun control at that point pretty much is set aside at the moment. Of course he called how the liberal networks would come out, and he was dead on!

      • Overall, I liked his speech. He could have skipped the violent video bashing even though I agree with him to a degree. I think that if someone (a boy or young man usually) is emotionally unbalanced then in that case I think those games can be dangerous.

  5. Even conservatives like Patrick Ruffini said the press conference showed the NRA lacks the ability to speak to people in the middle. Chris Christie spoke out against the NRA’s change-the-subject guards at every school plan. Meanwhile, four more people dead in a shooting in Pennsylvania. Guess those people needed armed guards, huh? And guards for the state troopers too?

    • Don’t be to quick to celebrate these deaths, one of which being the perpetrator. The state troopers were the ones to end the rampage and they were only injured.

    • I suppose you have the answer to this problem, right? One which doesn’t involve cutting up the constitution, right? Which will STOP this from happening in the future, right? Because we’re all ears. Please, enlighten us all. Now is your chance to save your country! Please, for heaven’s sake, enlighten us, and end the madness, today! You have the power!

    • Wasn’t the subject how to better protect the school children? Apparently that is less important to some folks than just preaching their brand of ‘Hoplophobia’.

      Begin sarcasm: it should comfort the victims’ families know that their lost loved ones were martyrs for political correctness; end sarcasm.

      • Re: your sarcasm, I’ve thought this before. Our politicians ask soldiers to die to protect the Constitution, and then use the deaths of children to attempt to destroy it.

        I’m sure there is a less bleak and harsh way to say that but it hasn’t come to me yet.

        • For about the last 50 years, I’d argue our soldiers sacrifices have been more about protecting (& expanding) American business interests abroad than anything to do with defending the Constitution here. That’s not a knock on soldiers, it is a condemnation of their superiors using them as pawns in a sick game of chess.

    • Chris Christie is the last conservative I would listen to. I could go on a flame but won’t as it is barely worth me putting this comment together.

      We don’t know everything yet about this shooter. He is dead though, thanks to the troopers.
      I am willing to bet that he was probably on a ceritonin inhibitor. It seems to be a common theme these days.

  6. Wow. Wonder what they will say about me, a Black Republican? Oh wait, the NYTimes allowed some asshole @ my alma mater to say that Black Republicans are sellouts, or in the words of Rob “Soon to be unemployed” Parker, we are cornball brothers. Keep it classy Liberals

    • Did you notice that Michael Steele was right out front in condemning the NRA statement? Not so much that he was first to comment, but when the press got a good anti-NRA soundbite he went to the head of the line.

      Nothing sells pageviews like conflict, I guess.

    • Oh Dirk they will call you not really a black man, or a racist working for the white man.. You know the usual dribble, because they can’t fathom anyone having conservative values, or being of color, and gosh thinking on their own..

  7. Wow. Wonder what they will say about me, a Black Republican? Oh wait, the NYTimes allowed some a$$hole @ my alma mater to say that Black Republicans are sellouts, or in the words of Rob “Soon to be unemployed” Parker, we are cornball brothers. Keep it classy Liberals

    • “Wonder what they will say about me, a Black Republican?”

      I probably get labeled a sell-out too being a pro-gun White Jew. Here is to you Dirk (I’m toasting you from my part of the country).

        • Throwing you both a bottle of Bushmills 12 year old Irish Whiskey. Share and enjoy!!!
          Me I’m just a redneck, uneducated, white trash hillbilly who happens to have honorably served my country for 15 years. As long as I pay my taxes and work till I die I bet the libs and their ilk will be happy. That way they can use my unused Social Security money for a “Gun Free Junket(vacation) to China!! “Have a nice trip, hope your boat gets stuck in hard left rudder, full speed ahead, in the middle of the ocean!!”

  8. Some people are simply weird and they get-off protesting, complaining, criticizing, and needing to be part of the latest social movement to make themselves feel superior, powerful, and special. I’m not suggesting that is the case for all or most of those who just jumped onto the gun-grabber knee-jerk-reaction train yet for many of those people it gives them a sense of purpose in their otherwise meaningless powerless lives.

    • These are same people who jumped on the Kony, Trayvon, and give the bus monitor a vacation movement. They patted themselves on the back for “making a difference”, as if twitter updates are all it take to change the world.

    • Few things are more intoxicating than self-righteousness. People make as good of decisions high on that as they do on other mood-altering substances, and their judgment should be considered just as suspect. We have the term “beer-goggling”, there needs to be one for the similarly illusory and deceptive view of the world experienced by those on a major self-righteousness bender.

  9. I take comfort in knowing that the moment any iPhone rumors are leaked all of these clowns will forget about gun control.

    One thing we can count, a new sparkly shiny object is on the horizon for a lot of short attention span people out there who don’t have it in them to dig in for a fight. We just can’t let their overwhelming hatred wear us down early on.

    • Why doesn’t he suggest allowing school personnel with CHL to carry inside the school instead of leaving their guns in their cars? That would cost the school districts nothing and would take exactly as long as it takes the teachers to retrive their guns to implement.

  13. One can argue that Englander and Australian gun owners lost out REALLY big due to not having any organization, like an NRA, to speak for them.

    • Your 100% right in a interview a British gun owner or former i should say said JOIN the NRA and with out the NRA we would have been sunk already.

  14. Just wondering,…. Lets say we ban all firearms…..what will the antis blame the next time there is a shooting? This ban is rediculous and does nothing to address the real problem. There is no common sense in this debate. They offered very real solutions and noone is listening!

    • Or… what will they say when the overall murder rate doesn’t go down and/or the violent crime rate goes up as history has shown to be?

      • What does the President say when the unemployment rate goes up and the GDP goes down, as history shows it to do when you follow these policies?

        Blame Bush. It always works, in part because liberals prefer subsentence answers to complex problems.

    • Let’s go beyond that: let’s wave this magic wand I keep safely stored away in a Swiss deposit box and make guns magically go away. Bam. Gone. Damn I’m good.

      Then it comes down to knifes and lead pipes. Make those go away, too. Real chefs use rapier-sharp wit to cut their food, anyway.

      Now we have a tyranny of the strong (linebackers, black belts, ex-SOCOM, whatever) over everyone else. That old line of “God made man; Samuel Colt made them equal” comes into play. Firearms allow the physically weak to have a chance defend themselves from the physically strong. They even the playing field. Not perfectly, perhaps, but far more than anything else. Pepper spray and Tasers are nice and all, but they are far less of a sure thing than a gun, and they’re usually one-and-done deals. As ever… don’t miss.

      • Guns are and always be a force multiplier. That is all they are, plain and simple. Nothing more needs to be said.

  15. I agree with WL that a large part of the answer is to have qualified people with firearms in the schools to help protect the kids. I do not agree that Congress needs to fund it. The people of each state and locality need to decide what measures are acceptable to them for their schools and fund it themselves accordingly. It amazes me that every time something bad happens, so many people have this reflex to bleat like a bunch of sheep at big daddy and big mommy federal government to save and provide for them. Americans used to solve their own problems within their own states and localities. No wonder we have a bloated federal government that grows ever bigger and erodes more of our liberty daily. We as a people need to solve our own problems and stop looking to the mastermind elites in DC. That Harrold, TX school came up with their own school security solution before the Newtown massacre without consulting with Washington DC. The best government is the government closest to the people. Give federalism a chance once again folks.

    • The School Shield program is to provide training to those to protect our schools. I don’t think they are asking for money..

      • WL called on Congress to appropriate money to put police officers in every school as a stop gap.

    • I watched the entire press conference and did not once hear him suggest that the feds foot the bill for armed guards at school. In fact, he even gave an example of a school where volunteers from the community rotated as guards at the local schools.

      • See that is why it won’t fly because it doesn’t require more taxes, and a big government bureaucracy!!! 😉

      • Without the transcript in front of me, I do believe he called for Congress allocating funding to place an LEO in every school before they return to classes in January.

      • You must not have been listening very well. Here is what WL said, “I call on Congress today to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every school…” It’s in the transcript.

  16. I think it’s time the Liberals and Conservatives, Left and Right, takers and makers, those taking handouts and those paying for those handouts, Blues and Reds, Anti and Pro gunners, etc. split up this fine country. Seems we are so far apart on issues that their might be no other solution.

    This comment is a little tongue and cheek – just a little. That said, if you squint really hard, you can see where this fine country is headed.

    Still clinging to my guns and bibles here in PA.

    • What about those of us who want guns and no Bibles? Who want to exercise their right to keep and bear arms AND their right to privacy and control of their bodies (with respect to abortion, controlled substances etc)? Who believe that a well-armed populace benefits society as a whole, but so does a public healthcare system funded by taxes?

        • My point was mainly that there are too many nuanced distinctions here to lump us all together into two groups. In reality, there should be far more, except that the current political system in this country, especially on federal level, promotes this kind of segregation into two big herds, not really representing any of us well, but encouraging the us-vs-them mentality.

          The way it should work is exactly the way this country was originally set up – many states, largely independent insofar as their own internal affairs are concerned, but united for the purpose of foreign affairs, defense, and single economic policy where it concerns trade between the states. This way, we could all have what we want, and keep the Union.

          Even today, the vestiges of that system still remain. If you’re a through and through conservative, Texas is your place. For myself, a gun-toting pinko liberal, Pacific Northwest provides a decent arrangement, balancing progressive socioeconomic measures with gun rights. For those who want high taxes and no guns, there’s California. The trick is to keep this setup (and advance it further), which means less Federal regulations, and more power to the states – whether said power is used to restrict guns, or to encourage their possession.

        • As having started this semi separatist discussion, it really was done “tongue and cheek”. And I certainty recognize that it’s not easy to classify folks as being this or that. But there clearly is an increasing divide in this country and the dialogue has become quite vicious. I think we could be headed for a deadly precipitous. First, it starts by people calling each other names and making disparaging remarks. Then it moves to restricting rights. Then discrimination. Then it very quickly disintegrates from there. The left and liberals are especially disparaging with many of their diatribes becoming shouting matches. I’m simply sounding a warning that this could get out of hand and we might end up somewhere we can’t walk back from. I hope I’m wrong.

      • A baby inside a woman’s body is a distinct separate human who has its own soul from conception. If the baby was part of the mother he/she would not require the placenta and other mechanisms to protect him/her from the immune system of the mother. From Wikipedia:

        Cloaking from immune system of mother
        Further information: Immune tolerance in pregnancy

        The placenta and fetus may be regarded as a foreign allograft inside the mother, and thus must evade from attack by the mother’s immune system.

        For this purpose, the placenta uses several mechanisms:

        It secretes Neurokinin B-containing phosphocholine molecules. This is the same mechanism used by parasitic nematodes to avoid detection by the immune system of their host.[13]
        There is presence of small lymphocytic suppressor cells in the fetus that inhibit maternal cytotoxic T cells by inhibiting the response to interleukin 2.[14]

        However, the Placental barrier is not the sole means to evade the immune system, as foreign foetal cells also persist in the maternal circulation, on the other side of the placental barrier.[15]

        Having an abortion (euphemistically called the right to choose) is exactly the same as hiring a hitman to kill someone. Exactly the same.

        Proverbs 14:12 and repeated in Proverbs 16:25 NIV – There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

        Killing a baby in the womb is murder. It has consequences. I pray that you will rethink your position on that subject.

  17. The great thing about this whole Newton debacle is that it’s really showing the true colors of many members of a supposed civilized society. It’s reinforcing my disdain and hatred for my “fellow” Americans and hopefully showing many more people that the greatest enemies to their lives and freedoms are their own neighbors. We can only hope that the division continues until the good, decent minority of this country says enough and takes the land back.

    Never become so complacent as to ever again forget what those around you are saying about you in the news, facebook, etc. Remember that over half of this country consists of enemies. Remember who the real enablers of oppression are.

    • Amen, although I don’t think it’s more than half. Most of the dweebs who are crying for more gun control are just idiots. Our real enemies are smart.

  18. I’m a pretty young guy, and I do enjoy the fact that Twitter does give you a sort of access to certain public figures that you would not normally have access to; I’ve personally been able to have several actual conversations with celebrities and politicians (or assistants posing as them) that I would not have been able to otherwise. That being said, Twitter allows the lowest people in society, those that would largely be afraid to speak to another individual, to air the most hateful speech they can think of with no accountability. I truly believe that it has led to a degradation of rational discourse in this nation that we have not seen since the founding.

    • It’s been going on for a long time:

      “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” H. L. Mencken

      I don’t know when he said it, but Mencken died in 1956.

    • My observation is that, in general, much of the so-called “Social Media” on the Internet is plagued by the lowest common denominator, or “haters”, as they are often called. This whole situation since Newtown, Ct., has brought the “haters” into the limelight, and given every zealous gun prohibitionist the opportunity to spout-off their ignorance and lunacy. There never will be a rational conversation about gun rights in this country, much less any reasonable outcome. Try talking to Piers Morgan if you don’t believe me.

  19. I liked the NRA conference there was no AWB talk because its not a issue yet. I know really feel that they and the GOP will oppose it. But security professionals have gone down nationally since Obama taken power but this would give many jobs back to security professionals. It protects kids and helps the economy.

  20. Alan Gottlieb and the Second Amendment Foundation has been doing a great job standing up for us! Consider supporting them. I just became a member this evening.

    I’m also a proud NRA member.

  21. Today, though I agreed with much of what he said, Wayne LaPierre was wrong to attack free speech. I don’t see the point in abandoning the first amendment to protect the second. We need them both.

    Hardly anyone who plays violent video games or watches violent movies will ever hurt anybody. It’s not right to punish millions and millions of people for the actions of an infinitesimally small percentage of their cohort. Those who demonize the games as nothing more than murder simulators, with no redeeming artistic value whatsoever, clearly have never played them. The fact that media conglomerates make money selling these forms of entertainment in no way proves that defenders of the First Amendment can be dismissed as insincere about their principles, or driven by nothing but greed.

    He, of all people, should know better. Second amendment rights regularly get attacked the same way. Only a tiny percentage of gun owners, most of whom didn’t acquire their guns legally in the first place, will ever misuse guns to hurt anybody. People who don’t own guns themselves regularly assume they have no legitimate use except maybe hunting, but any of the underreported 100,000 people or more per year who use their guns to thwart violent crime know differently. Certainly the LA shop owners who used so-called “assault weapons” to credibly deter crowds of rioters from threatening their lives and property understand what positive yet non-recreational use such a weapon might have. Finally, enemies of the NRA claim it is nothing more than an industry lobbyist, and leave out any mention of its millions of individual members, who if anything are LESS willing than manufacturers to tolerate any compromise, and are quite sincere in their belief that self defense is a human right and the Second Amendment is at its core, not about hunting, but instead liberty’s guarantor of last resort.

    So it’s pretty rich for him, not only to be attacking video games and movies and the industry that produces them, but to be doing it in pretty much the exact same way as gun control advocates attack the NRA. Oh, I see what you did there, Wayne. Well played, well played. I’ll be watching for phase 2.

  22. “The @NRA’s press conference was a shameful evasion of the crisis facing our nation.”
    “the NRA’s change-the-subject guards at every school plan.”

    Who’s kidding who?

    All this idiocy about “assault rifles”, and “bring back the AWB” is a “change-the-subject” ploy by the politicians, and their leftist supporters in the media, who know they can’t defend the stupidity of the Gun Free School Zone Act they so self-righteously dropped on us, so they want to blame guns and all gun owners instead.

    I’d like to hear how they rationalize the outrageous idiocy that thinks a law, and a sign declaring “Nobody is allowed to have a gun within 1,000 feet of a school’s grounds” is going to be obeyed by any criminal, let alone a homicidal/suicidal psycho intent on mass-murder of children.

    Look up “Donna the deer lady” on You-Tube. She was very upset that DEER XING signs were posted on busy highways, and wanted them posted on back roads instead. That way the deer could move about safely. That is the same kind of idiocy that is reflected in the prohibitions of the Gun Free School Zone Act.

    Homicidal/suicidal psychos will see a sign that says “Gun Free Zone”, turn around and go home.

    That stupid theory has been proved false over and over, each time costing innocent lives.

    But of course we will never hear any justification for such reckless foolishness. We will never hear a word of apology for their stupidity. We will never hear them admit that it was a great way to harass lawful CCW holders, and limit them in their movements, and anything that can limit the RKBA is good, especially if it is done in the name of “the safety of our children”.

    The blood of those children is on the hands of the brilliant legislators, and all their supporters, who foisted this GFSZA idiocy on us all, and now want to change the subject to “assault weapons”.

  23. It is amazing to me how anti-gunners can post such violent comments about murdering us gun owners, but we are persecuted as being the problem with this country. Why are they not subjected to mental health checks? Comments like that make me wonder if an anti-gunner might shoot-up a gun free zone just to make a point. But we are the ones they worry about, tens of millions of guns that every day do not kill anyone or anything.

  24. People forget that Wayne has a job: defend gun owners and the 2A. You wouldn’t expect anything less from a leader of an anti-gun group, or any other politically-motivated or related cause. Left or right. Now I do think his blame towards video games etc look more like scapegoating than anything else, and I wish he would stick to facts and reason, but I also know he’s dealing with a mostly-irrational opponent and general public. Hard to reason with someone while they’re screaming in your face, calling you anything nasty they can think of. I do think they need a new spokesperson, preferably not an OFWG. Some serious branding and message issues to be worked on, beyond the base.

  25. Let’s face it gentle people – Wayne LaPierre has got to go. He fought hard and won many battles for our second amendment rights but he’s losing the war.

    He did a great job of overpowering the gun control advocates and he enabled any law abiding, mentally fit citizen to obtain and own an AR. But it wasn’t enough. In hindsight there was an imbalance between the NRA’s efforts to ensure our rights and the rest of the NRA’s mission – to educate and promote gun safety. And so as the commercialization and popularization of ARs ramped up the educational component didn’t. We’ve all been to the range next to some pasty faced, inexperienced idiot who chose an AR as his entry level rifle. No, excuse me – his entry level rifle was likely his airsoft AR. I’ve always found it alarming, and disturbing to say the least. Haven’t you?

    That’s why LaPierre seemed so lost yesterday – because he failed to follow through after winning so much. That’s why he was unable to actually make any “meaningful contributions” as he promised. That’s why he created the outright false and crazy scenario of Lanza shooting his mom so that he could then steal her guns?? Umm, no – he had access to his mom’s guns and used them to shoot her. LaPierre knows he screwed up, he just doesn’t want any of us to know so that he can retain his grip on power. But it was written all over his face and it was evident in his inability to put together a thoughtful strategy. I’m sure he intends to simply do more of what he has done in the past – to blame the anti gunners, pit us against them, ask us to fill his coffers some more when in fact it is he who is to blame. He doesn’t matter anymore. There are more important things than his personal pride at stake.

    I guess we’re all too much in “battle mode” to step back and be self critical: Ms Lanza permitted her 20yo, live at home, anti-social, maladapted son access to her guns. Bad, bad, bad – not safe, not a responsible gun owner.

    He missed an amazing opportunity to publicly recognize Ms Lanza’s and by extension the NRA’s short sightedness. He missed the opportunity to demonstrate humility, to reach out to a hurting country, to seize and change the conversation from one of gun “control” to one of gun “safety”. After all, everyone wants to be safe and nobody wants to be controlled. And no, nobody wants armed men walking around schools like we live in some third world country.

    Its not too late. Obviously legislation is going to happen. The NRA can still shape the outcome. But not without any validity. He rendered himself invalid (and out of touch) yesterday and if we don’t do anything about it he’s going to take the NRA down with him. He’s going down either way but he should do the right thing , walk away and allow a more nuanced leader to lead. One that recognizes that all americans have valid concerns and that we are not each other’s enemies.

    This is not an opportunity to crank up the fear mongering and hate baiting – it’s an opportunity to transcend it. LaPierre is not the man to do it.

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