Showing posts with label Crackamas mass shooting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crackamas mass shooting. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

From Oregon to Connecticut, from adults to little children, NRA gun culture kills again

What a way to return from a vacation that also ended in a disaster but at least turned out better than the two events in the Crackamas Town Center Mall and Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School.  In both Oregon and Connecticut, the shooter was using automatic assault-type rifles to do his dirty work, weapons that Wayne LaPierre and his gun nut members of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) have been protecting since the ban was lifted in 2004.

In Crackamas, 2 were killed, one wounded; in Newtown, 27 shot dead, 20 of these children ages 6 and 7, the second worst mass shooting after Virginia Tech.  2 were wounded.  In both cases the gunmen killed themselves.  And, of course, before these two there were the Sikh Temple shooting, the Aurora Theatre shooting and the Tucson shooting.  But can you believe that sprinkled in between were another 6 mass shootings with a minimum killed of five?  Believe it!


LaPierre - Guns and more guns
So how does wacky Wayne of the NRA respond?  Without accepting any blame for what has happened in any of these firearm massacres, this blockhead wants to put armed guards in schools.  He continued, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”  It’s always “more guns” because the only way LaPierre can hold on to his financially lucrative job is to sell tons of guns to satisfy the gun manufacturers that support the NRA.  Collusion at its worst.

However, there is no end to the negative reaction LaPierre has received from gun control advocates and also from gun owners.  Waldo Jaquith says the NRA looks “insane” and has now delayed joining the organization.  David Domke, communications professor at the U. of Washington, says LaPierre waited to make his statement to appease the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party.  Connecticut’s new congressman from Newtown labeled LaPierre “tone deaf.”

Watch demonstrators shame LaPierre, about 5 minutes in

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg called LaPierre’s statement, "a shameful evasion of the crisis facing our country."  Even former RNC Chairman Michael Steele said the NRA’s remarks were, “very haunting and very disturbing."  Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg from New Jersey called LaPierre “reckless.”  Another Dem, Sen. Barbara Boxer from Calif. says the man is “completely out of touch.”  It would appear only NRA Pres. David Keene came to wacky Wayne’s defense. 

Gabby Giffords’ husband, Mark Kelly, thinks even NRA members want more common sense gun regulation.  Ladd Everett of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence is against putting our children in the middle of shootouts between the “good guys” and “bad guys.”  The right way, according to Ladd, is to ban military-style firearms and improve background checks.  I must add that there is no way at this point the NRA can defend not closing the gun show loophole.

David Frum, former special asst. to G. W. Bush, says that at least LaPierre’s press conference has shed light on the “foundational assumption of the modern American gun culture.”  He quotes an incident of a neighbor shooting a neighbor over barking dogs.  Frum says “There's solid research to show that most so-called defensive gun uses are not really defensive at all.”  Frum’s conclusion is that it isn’t really clear who is the “bad guy” and who is the “good guy.”

After Wayne LaPierre’s recent performance in answer to the Newtown mass murders, most will probably agree that he is the bad guy.

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