How Wayne LaPierre Increases Gun Sales

My Key Strokes

The National Rifle Association is holding their annual conference in Indianapolis this year, and Wayne LaPierre is sounding more unhinged than ever. He sounds almost as paranoid as our quail-hunting former vice-president.

Perhaps the nation’s most visible gun rights advocate, LaPierre drew a stark picture of the dangers that he said plague the country and argued the government has failed to protect its citizens.

“We know that in the world that surrounds us there are terrorists, home invaders, drug cartels, car jackers, ‘knock-out’ gamers, rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse as a society that sustains us all,” he said.

“So I ask you this afternoon: do you trust this government really to protect you and your family?” he continued. “We’re on our own. That’s a certainty.”

LaPierre got so worked up there that basic grammar broke down for him. I don’t know quite what to make from such heated rhetoric. Is it some kind of sign of desperation? Do the people who travel to NRA conferences really need to be sustained on this level of high-octane bugnuttery?

Notice the incredible inversion of reality, where campus killers and shopping mall killers and airport killers are less a threat because they’ve legally purchased semiautomatic weapons despite being insane than they are an excuse for the rest of us to purchase semiautomatic weapons for our own defense.

Notice that the argument is not that we need to be armed to serve in a well-regulated militia but to prepare for the complete breakdown of modern civilization.

We must be prepared for “vicious waves of chemicals” that will no doubt be unleashed on the unincorporated hamlets of red state America rather than in our densely-populated cities.

Big Loss for the NRA - La Pierre Looks Foolish

Gun Control Debate The NRA Gets Its Day In Court — and It Loses Unanimously 

policymic

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has failed in an attempt to block a new gun regulation introduced by President Obama in July 2011, which will require gun dealers in border states to report multiple sales of semi-automatic weapons. In a unanimous ruling on Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected the claim by the NRA that the requirement was nothing more than an underhanded attempt to introduce a register of gun sales, which the NRA is vehemently opposed to.

NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said at the time that the organization viewed the rule "as a blatant attempt by the Obama administration to pursue their gun-control agenda through backdoor rule making, and the N.R.A. will fight them every step of the way. There are three branches of government and separation of powers, and we believe they do not have the authority to do this." However, on Friday the three federal judges all rejected this claim and agreed that the Obama administration should be allowed to continue with implementation of the new rule.

Furthermore, the judges specifically rejected the NRA's argument that the rule would amount to the creation of a gun registry, saying that it "does not come close to creating a 'national firearms registry'" because it only applies to four states and only on a very limited basis. Under the rule, if there were no investigative leads arising from the information passed on to it after two years, the ATF would then delete it. Holders of federal firearms licences are already required to report multiple sales of handguns.

La Pierre: The Guys with the Guns Make the Rules

Lawrence O'Donnell on the Mendacious and Ridiculous La Pierre Remarks about Boston

Mike Weisser's Open Letter to Wayne La Pierre

Dear Wayne:

Sorry I couldn't make it to the annual meeting. I'm a Life Member and I try to get there every year. But this year is different. If I showed up you'd tried to get me to help you fight a "culture war." But if there is a war going on, you represent the wrong side.

I just watched your speech. I think it's time you dropped this nonsense about protecting our "rights." Be honest and tell it like it is. The reason you're opposed to background checks has absolutely nothing to do with the Second Amendment. It's about making it as easy as possible for everyone to own a gun. More guns means more profits for the gun companies, and that's who you really represent. 

In 2011, Ruger's stock was trading at $21 a share, now it's at $51. Smith & Wesson's stock was three bucks a share, today it's almost nine. I remember after the 2010 elections when it looked like the Obama administration was going to be toast, gun dealers like myself couldn't give away the inventory. Now we can't keep anything on the shelves. You keep referring to the president as an enemy of the gun industry. The truth is that Barack Obama is the best salesman the industry ever had.

And the reason he's such a good salesman, Wayne, is because you and your allies have spent the last 20 years making every gun owner believe that the only reason we have any gun laws at all is because the Washington "elites" want to take away all our guns. So when a tragedy like Sandy Hook occurs and well-meaning people react to such senseless violence by looking for ways to make it harder for guns to get into the wrong hands, you and the other "protectors" of the Second Amendment get right to work convincing responsible gun owners that such laws are aimed at them. You are protecting illegal and "irresponsible" gun owners, and lumping them in with the majority of legal gun owners who are careful with their weapons. That's because an irresponsible gun owners' money is just as good for gun companies as a responsible gun owner, and you want to protect your market share, even at the expense of innocent lives.

It's easy to cloak yourself in a holier-than-thou mantle of God-given rights to avoid looking at the facts. And the facts are that private-citizen vigilantism doesn't protect anyone from gun violence; it actually results in more violence and deaths. It's easy to disparage the 90 percent of Americans who are in favor of expanding background checks by telling your audience that some unnamed Congressman from some unnamed state hasn't gotten any calls. But maybe the time has finally come when most Americans are more worried about ending the 100,000+ firearm deaths and injuries than whether you and your NRA cult of followers can Stand and Fight.

For all your talk about defending liberty Wayne, I'll give you something more important to defend: the young children whose lives always seem to take a back seat to how many guns you can get Americans to buy. I'm talking about children at Sandy Hook, a 4-year-old in New York, a 2-year-old in Kentucky. There's something immoral about denying any connection between the deaths of children and the explosion in gun sales that you claim show how much we love our freedom. I'd rather have those kids alive, even if it costs me more than a few bucks in gun sales. I joined Evolve so I could be part of an organization that wants gun owners and non-gun owners to lead with solutions that can talk about saving human lives and preserving our Second Amendment rights. That's patriotic and that is a future worth fighting for.

La Pierre: How Many Bostonians Wished They Had a Gun Two Weeks Ago?

Politifact: Obama Tells Truth, La Pierre Lies

PolitiFact

This week, the drive to mandate universal gun sale background checks and close the "gun show loophole" failed in the Senate.

President Barack Obama blamed the gun lobby for the bill's defeat, saying the National Rifle Association and others lied about the bill's content.

"They claimed that it would create some sort of ‘big brother’ gun registry, even though the bill did the opposite," Obama said. "This legislation, in fact, outlawed any registry. Plain and simple, right there in the text. But that didn't matter."

The NRA's Wayne LaPierre said the Association would never back a federal gun registry.


"That's what they're after, the names of good, decent people all over this great country who happen to own a firearm to go into a federal database for universal registration," he said.

Many U.S. Senators voted no on the bill fearing the measure would lead to the government keeping tabs on gun-owning Americans.

Angry constituents, such as the Arizona Citizens Defense League, sent emails saying the bill was "proposing the universal regulation of all firearms and their owners."

PolitiFact rated Obama's statement as true.

The government is currently required to destroy all personal information found in background checks, and the bill would have actually outlawed a federal gun registry.

The Meet the Press Interview

Addicting Info

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Whining about Mayor Bloomberg spending $12Million while, at the same time spending over $37Million defies logic…then again, so does the 180° flip-flop regarding background checks, and the 180° flip-flop regarding guns in schools [link].

What seems painfully clear, Mayor Bloomberg wants to see a reduction in gun violence, Wayne LaPierre want to see continued profits for the gun industry for whom he lobbies.

I can't believe any reasonably intelligent person can listen to these two guys and prefer La Pierre.  I figure those who do are either lying, because they love their gun rights so much, or they're actually blinded by bias and actually do think Wayne makes more sense.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Bloomberg and La Pierre

Shown here are New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, left, and National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre. (AP) 

Fox

NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre on Sunday challenged New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to spend $12 million on ads meant to pressure senators into backing strict new gun control measures, saying Bloomberg "can't buy America."

Bloomberg's pro-gun control group Mayors Against Illegal Guns is launching the campaign in states where senators may be on the fence regarding a package of firearms proposals making its way to the Senate floor. As the push for that legislation appears to falter, President Obama plans to soon tour the country to talk about the need to reduce gun violence, a senior administration official confirmed to Fox News. Bloomberg also confirmed Sunday that he plans to spend $12 million to run ads in at least 10 states, suggesting there could be a political price to pay for opposing the measures.

Making clear he intends to be a counterweight to the NRA, Bloomberg said he wants to make sure the powerful gun lobby is not "the only voice" in this debate. If he can achieve that, Bloomberg said, "then I think my money would be well spent."

LaPierre bristled at Bloomberg's comments.

"He can't spend enough of his $27 billion to try to impose his will on the American public," LaPierre said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." "He can't buy America."

Bloomberg said he wants to ensure that the NRA is not the only voice in the debate. La Pierre said "He can't buy America."  What a perfect illustration of one man being reasonable and the other being a bullying fanatic.

Wayne doesn't like the idea that the gun control side of the debate might be equally represented.  Like any bully, it makes him nervous.  It's a frightening prospect that the millions spent by the NRA, to "buy America," might be matched or even outdone by his opponents.

By outdone I mean, communicating clearly to the voting representatives that by voting against gun control measures they are not representing their constituents. They are simply doing the bidding of the gun manufacturers.

Sooner or later this will cost them.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Senator Leahy Grills Wayne La Pierre

Time

Here is the transcript:

LEAHY: Do you still, as you did in 1999, still support mandatory background checks at gun shows? Yes or no?
LAPIERRE: We supported the National Instant Check System on dealers. I — we were here when Senator Birch Bayh, one of your colleagues, held the hearings in terms of who would be a dealer and who would be required to have a license. If you did it for livelihood and profit, yes. If you were a hobbyist, then no.
LEAHY: Let’s make — let’s make it easier, though. I’m talking about gun shows. Should we have mandatory background checks at gun shows for sales of weapons?
LAPIERRE: If you’re a dealer, that’s already the law. If you’re talking…
LEAHY: That’s not my question. Please, Mr. LaPierre, I’m not trying to play games here. But, if you could, just answer my question.
LAPIERRE: Senator, I do not believe the way the law is working now, unfortunately, that it does any good to extend the law to private sales between hobbyists and collectors.
LEAHY: OK, so you do not support mandatory background checks in all instances at gun shows?
LAPIERRE: We do not, because the fact is, the law right now is a failure the way it’s working. The fact is, you have 76,000-some people that have been denied under the present law. Only 44 were prosecuted. You’re letting them go. They’re walking the streets.

Read the exchange again. When LaPierre eventually gets to the point of answering the question, after three attempts by Leahy, the head of the NRA has changed the subject. Instead of talking about non-dealer gun show sales, he starts talking about the failure of the federal government to prosecute criminals after they have been denied an opportunity to purchase a gun. Because of this, he says, the background system of dealers, which he still supports, failing, and therefore should not be extended. The argument is not entirely logical. (He admits the dealer checks are effective in preventing gun sales, even if criminals are not prosecuted for their attempts.) But it is textbook LaPierre.

Piers Morgan could learn how to demand an answer from Senator Leahy.

What do you think?  Please leave a comment.

Newsy on the La Pierre Response to Obama's Inaugural Speech

The Method Behind Wayne La Pierre's Madness

Mother Jones via Dog Gone of Penigma

At a no-questions press conference in late December following the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre announced a bold new multibillion-dollar proposal to end school shootings: Put an armed security guard or police officer in every school in the country. LaPierre commissioned a special task force to develop the plan, and deputized Asa Hutchinson, a former Republican congressman from Arkansas and director of the Drug Enforcement Agency under President George W. Bush, to head the effort.

But there's something the LaPierre didn't mention: Hutchinson sits on the board of directors of Pinkerton Government Services, a subsidiary of one of the nation's largest private security contractors, Securitas. And if the NRA's—and Hutchinson's—proposals are enacted into law, Securitas, a firm Hutchinson once lobbied for in Washington, could stand to score big.

This is one of the most despicable tricks I've seen yet.  It's bad enough that La Pierre set the entire pro-gun world on fire with the idea that arming more good guys is the answer INSTEAD of doing something about gun availability to the unfit and dangerous, but now this. The method behind his madness was nothing more lofty than filthy lucre, when what's in the balance is the continuing gun violence epidemic in the US. I have no words for that level of political opportunism.  It's despicable and reprehensible.

There should be a mass exodus from the membership roles of the NRA over this. The legacy of Papa Bush should inspire all thinking members. 

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment-

High Capacity Magazines are not the Problem, Says La Pierre

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I say the large capacity magazines are part of the problem and perhaps banning them is the most important part of the new AWB.  I say that based on the Loughner case in which it seemed clear that he killed more people than he would have due to the 30-round magazine he used. I say it based on the Aurora shooting, in which Holmes used a 100-round drum and probably did more damage as a result.  And I base it on the Lanza shooting where it seems entirely possible that if he'd had to change magazines more often, fewer kids might have died.

La Pierre and his sycophants keep telling us it would do no good, but that same rationale does not apply to murder.  We don't argue for de-criminalizing murder because we still have them in spite of the law. No, we try to find ways to prevent them, first by making it illegal.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

La Pierre Calls the Mentally Ill Monsters

ABC News reports

The National Rifle Association has come under fire by an association of psychiatrists for its characterization of people who commit violent crimes as "monsters," "lunatics" and "insane."  

"One of the things that may be especially distressing for individuals who have a mental health condition and their families is this automatic leap based on stereotyped perceptions linking mental illness and violence," Corolla [Bob Carolla, a spokesman for the National Alliance on Mental Illness] said. "Statistically we know the relationship is very small." 

According to Corolla, one in four American adults experience a mental health problem in any given year, yet the U.S. Surgeon General determined over a decade ago that the overall contribution of mental disorders to the total level of violence in society is exceptionally small. He added that people with mental disorders are far more likely to be the victims of crimes, rather than the perpetrators.

The gun-rights folks often call people who break into houses and commit other crimes "goblins." This de-humanizing of the criminal is very useful in justifying an extreme response. In a similar way, Wayne La Pierre referred to the mass shooters as monsters in his famous statement the other day.

What's your opinion?  Is that wrong?  Is it politically incorrect to refer to the mentally ill like that?  Does it matter?

Please leave a comment.

1995: George H.W. Bush Resigned Lifetime NRA Membership Over La Pierre Fanaticism

 The New Civil Rights Movement

“On April 13, less than a week before the Oklahoma City bombing, Mr. LaPierre signed a fund-raising letter asserting that President Clinton’s ban on assault weapons ‘gives jackbooted Government thugs more power to take away our constitutional rights, break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property and even injure and kill us,’” The New York Times reported in May of 1995:

From a “special report” in “The American Rifleman,” the N.R.A. magazine, June 1994 edition, written by Wayne R. LaPierre Jr., the association’s executive vice president. It is titled, “The Final War Has Begun.”

“How long are the American people going to put up with this sort of thing? It is popular at this time to compare the behavior our uncontrolled Federal agents to that of the Nazis in the Third Reich. It may be that this is a valid comparison, but the Nazis are long ago and far away, whereas the ninja in the U.S. are right now in full-cry and apparently without fear of any sort of control. The move mainly at night. They conceal their faces. They use overwhelming firepower and the make almost no effort to identify their targets. They are scarier than the Nazis — who at least never concealed their faces.”

The first President Bush's response, final two paragraphs of his letter:

However, your broadside against Federal agents deeply offends my own sense of decency and honor; and it offends my concept of service to country. It indirectly slanders a wide array of government law enforcement officials, who are out there, day and night, laying their lives on the line for all of us. 

You have not repudiated Mr. LaPierre’s unwarranted attack. Therefore, I resign as a Life Member of N.R.A., said resignation to be effective upon your receipt of this letter. Please remove my name from your membership list. Sincerely, [ signed ] George Bush

Wayne La Pierre Really Embarrassed Himself on this One

The New Civil Rights Movement

National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre claims that Jovan Belcher‘s girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins, would be alive today if she only had had her own gun. 

LaPierre is dead wrong: there were eight guns in the Belcher-Perkins house. So much for NRA bull. 

 “The one thing missing in that equation is that woman owning a gun so she could have saved her life from that murderer,” LaPierre told USA TODAY Sports, talking about Kasandra Perkins and Jovan Belcher. 

“According to Kansas City police, Belcher owned multiple guns, and they were in the house,” USA TODAY reports. 

“In addition, Sports Illustrated has reported that Perkins went to shooting ranges with Belcher.” 

Jack Dickey at Deadspin writes, “Jovan Belcher and Kasandra Perkins kept ‘about eight guns’ in their house and liked to go shooting together, according to a new report from Sports Illustrated.”

So, Wayne LaPierre and the NRA are full of it.

There are many examples of this, perhaps the best is Meleanie Hain. The obvious lesson from this is that battered women need to remove themselves from the threat. Having a gun is rarely good enough.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

NRA’s La Pierre has Blood on his Hands

Salon

For 21 years, LaPierre has been the executive VP and chief political strategist of the National Rifle Association. The blood of the victims of the Aurora, Colorado shooting is on his hands.

Of course, LaPierre didn’t pull the trigger, but he’s the NRA’s hit man when it comes to intimidating elected officials to oppose any kind of gun control and the nation’s most vocal advocate of gun owner rights.

The NRA not only lobbies on behalf of  “stand your ground” laws, but also offers insurance to members to pay for the legal costs of shooting people in “self-defense.”  

James Holmes, the man who walked into the Aurora movie theater, killed 12 people and wounded 58 others, is no doubt deranged. He’s not alone. There are lots of crazy people around. But if we make it easy for them to obtain guns, they are more likely to translate their psychological problems into dangerous and deadly anti-social behavior. 

LaPierre’s job (which he’s held for 21 years) is to make it easier for people to buy and use guns. And so far he’s been very successful.

It is no accident that the United States ranks first in the world — by a wide margin — in gun-related civilian deaths and injuries. Compared with every other democracy, we have the most guns and the weakest gun laws.

Wayne's no dummy. He knows the best way to mitigate the effect of an accusation like "blood on the hands," is to first and more frequently accuse his opponents of it.This is exactly what he's done.

How many times have we heard this from gun-rights fanatics?  How often have they attempted to silence us with the nonsense that we're "dancing in the blood" of the victims.

Mr. E. J. Dionne's Washington Post editorial of a few days ago described it best.

Nobody who points to the inadequacy of our flood-control policies or mistakes by the Army Corps of Engineers is accused of "exploiting" the victims of a deluge. Nobody who criticizes a botched response by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to a natural disaster is accused of "exploiting" the victims of a hurricane or a tornado. Nobody who lays part of the blame for an accident on insufficient regulation of, say, the airlines or coal mining is accused of "exploiting" the accident's victims. 

No, it's only where a gun massacre is concerned that an absolute and total gag rule is imposed on any thinking beyond the immediate circumstances of the catastrophe. God forbid that we question even a single tenet of the theology of firearms.

What's your opinion? Do you think La Pierre will be able to continue getting away with such flagrant trickery? Do you think the public might have had just about enough?

Please leave a comment.

La Pierre Promises to Help Harlem Moms

via Baldr from The Daily News

A Harlem mom whose two sons were murdered by gun-toting killers stood toe-to-toe Saturday with a leader of the National Rifle Association.

Jackie Rowe-Adams traveled to the NRA’s national meeting and had a verbal duel with NRA CEO and Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, a slightly tense exchange that evolved into mutual respect.

“For a minute, for a second, I felt a little anger, because he was so determined to believe that his way was right,” Rowe-Adams said afterward. “But then he flipped on it, and started to listen.”

I'm holding my breath, how about you?

"Mark My Words" Says Wayne La Pierre

via Driftglass

Chris Brown on Wayne La Pierre and the Fast and Furious Scandal

Chris Brown wrote a wonderful article for Media Matters about the NRA and the Fast and Furious scandal.

The pattern from National Rifle Association (NRA) executive vice president Wayne LaPierre is getting pretty clear: ad hominem name-calling, a slew of conspiratorial misinformation, and a call for gun owners to align with the NRA's political agenda and defeat President Obama based on those ginned-up grievances.

For months, LaPierre's been pushing interlinked false talking points on the trafficking of U.S. guns to Mexico in a variety of media formats. According to the NRA leader, requiring gun dealers to report multiple sales of rifles Mexican cartels are known to favor to the ATF is an assault against American gun owners. He's also claimed the Obama administration intentionally manufactured a crisis by allowing U.S. guns to fall into the hands of cartels to justify more gun control.

This time speaking through the NRA's many publications LaPierre gets explicit about why he's been pushing those claims: it's all about attacking President Obama. From the piece:

All of this was done to bring about Barack Obama's promised "under the radar" gun control.
[...]
Gun owners must begin marshalling our collective power to unelect not only Obama and his crowd, but to unelect his anti-gun-owner axis in Congress.

Getting back to his roots, LaPierre starts by throwing around insults, referring to people to who disagree with the NRA about the role of U.S. guns in Mexico as "ghouls":

This move by unelected bureaucrats is part of a plan that was hatched at the outset of the Obama administration with the full support of a host of media enablers. Those in the gun-ban crowd are ghouls, always in search of a "crisis" to feed on.

One minor point, which I find absolutely hysterical, is the word "ghoul" used by La Pierre. Not too long ago some of my commenters started calling me that particular name. Now I see where it came from. You see, in the gun-rights movement there's very little thinking going on, there's just repeating the NRA talking points right down to the name-calling. These guys are a riot.

Chris debunks the two major lies which Wayne La Pierre has been pushing. The downplaying of the role of gun dealers along the border in supplying guns to Mexico is answered by this:

As Media Matters reported in August:

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' (ATF) has seized more 10,000 firearms and more then 1.1. million rounds of ammunition headed to the southwest border since 2006. On the Mexican side of the border, 20,504 or 70 percent of the total firearms seized and submitted for tracing in the last two years were from the United States.

The other lie was that the Fast and Furious botched sting operation is responsible for a significant number of the smuggled guns. It was handled like this:

Nor do the numbers back up the contention that Fast and Furious fueled a large spike in Mexican cartel crime guns traced to the United States. The Washington Post reported in July that 227 guns related to Fast and Furious had been recovered in Mexico. If all of those guns were part of the trace data it would account for only 1 percent of U.S. sourced guns traced in the last two years.

What's your opinion? If the ability to own a gun were really the civil right they say it is, why would they have to resort to so much distortion and misdirection to protect it? Why would the gun-rights advocates so often resort to name-calling and general nastiness? Why would the issue be so controversial?

I'll tell you why. Because they're wrong. Gun rights, which leads to gun availability to those who are unfit to responsibly handle guns, is a plague on our country. Reasonable people know this, even reasonable gun owners. It's the small, very vocal and very well financed minority, led by unscrupulous men like Wayne La Pierre who are responsible for the controversy as well as the gun availability itself.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.