After a week of self-imposed silence on the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, the NRA’s Wayne Lapierre issued the following statement earlier today. I agree wholeheartedly that the real issue is how to deal with the root cause. We also need to protect our children from violence, just as the precious resources that they are. As a nation, we are failing miserably on that point. Gun free zones are an open invitation to mayhem.
The National Rifle Association’s 4 million mothers, fathers, sons and daughters join the nation in horror, outrage, grief and earnest prayer for the families of Newtown, Connecticut … who suffered such incomprehensible loss as a result of this unspeakable crime.
Out of respect for those grieving families, and until the facts are known, the NRA has refrained from comment. While some have tried to exploit tragedy for political gain, we have remained respectfully silent.
Now, we must speak … for the safety of our nation’s children. Because for all the noise and anger directed at us over the past week, no one — nobody — has addressed the most important, pressing and immediate question we face: How do we protect our children right now, starting today, in a way that we know works?
The only way to answer that question is to face up to the truth. Politicians pass laws for Gun-Free School Zones. They issue press releases bragging about them. They post signs advertising them.
And in so doing, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are their safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk.
How have our nation’s priorities gotten so far out of order? Think about it. We care about our money, so we protect our banks with armed guards. American airports, office buildings, power plants, courthouses — even sports stadiums — are all protected by armed security.
We care about the President, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents. Members of Congress work in offices surrounded by armed Capitol Police officers.
Yet when it comes to the most beloved, innocent and vulnerable members of the American family — our children — we as a society leave them utterly defenseless, and the monsters and predators of this world know it and exploit it. That must change now!
The truth is that our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters — people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them. They walk among us every day. And does anybody really believe that the next Adam Lanza isn’t planning his attack on a school he’s already identified at this very moment?
How many more copycats are waiting in the wings for their moment of fame — from a national media machine that rewards them with the wall-to-wall attention and sense of identity that they crave — while provoking others to try to make their mark?
A dozen more killers? A hundred? More? How can we possibly even guess how many, given our nation’s refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill?
And the fact is, that wouldn’t even begin to address the much larger and more lethal criminal class: Killers, robbers, rapists and drug gang members who have spread like cancer in every community in this country. Meanwhile, federal gun prosecutions have decreased by 40% — to the lowest levels in a decade.
So now, due to a declining willingness to prosecute dangerous criminals, violent crime is increasing again for the first time in 19 years! Add another hurricane, terrorist attack or some other natural or man-made disaster, and you’ve got a recipe for a national nightmare of violence and victimization.
And here’s another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.
Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse. And here’s one: it’s called Kindergarten Killers. It’s been online for 10 years. How come my research department could find it and all of yours either couldn’t or didn’t want anyone to know you had found it?
Then there’s the blood-soaked slasher films like “American Psycho” and “Natural Born Killers” that are aired like propaganda loops on “Splatterdays” and every day, and a thousand music videos that portray life as a joke and murder as a way of life. And then they have the nerve to call it “entertainment.”
But is that what it really is? Isn’t fantasizing about killing people as a way to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography?
In a race to the bottom, media conglomerates compete with one another to shock, violate and offend every standard of civilized society by bringing an ever-more-toxic mix of reckless behavior and criminal cruelty into our homes — every minute of every day of every month of every year.
A child growing up in America witnesses 16,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence by the time he or she reaches the ripe old age of 18.
And throughout it all, too many in our national media … their corporate owners … and their stockholders … act as silent enablers, if not complicit co-conspirators. Rather than face their own moral failings, the media demonize lawful gun owners, amplify their cries for more laws and fill the national debate with misinformation and dishonest thinking that only delay meaningful action and all but guarantee that the next atrocity is only a news cycle away.
The media call semi-automatic firearms “machine guns” — they claim these civilian semi-automatic firearms are used by the military, and they tell us that the .223 round is one of the most powerful rifle calibers … when all of these claims are factually untrue. They don’t know what they’re talking about!
Worse, they perpetuate the dangerous notion that one more gun ban — or one more law imposed on peaceful, lawful people — will protect us where 20,000 others have failed!
As brave, heroic and self-sacrificing as those teachers were in those classrooms, and as prompt, professional and well-trained as those police were when they responded, they were unable — through no fault of their own — to stop it.
As parents, we do everything we can to keep our children safe. It is now time for us to assume responsibility for their safety at school. The only way to stop a monster from killing our kids is to be personally involved and invested in a plan of absolute protection. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Would you rather have your 911 call bring a good guy with a gun from a mile away … or a minute away?
Now, I can imagine the shocking headlines you’ll print tomorrow morning: “More guns,” you’ll claim, “are the NRA’s answer to everything!” Your implication will be that guns are evil and have no place in society, much less in our schools. But since when did the word “gun” automatically become a bad word?
A gun in the hands of a Secret Service agent protecting the President isn’t a bad word. A gun in the hands of a soldier protecting the United States isn’t a bad word. And when you hear the glass breaking in your living room at 3 a.m. and call 911, you won’t be able to pray hard enough for a gun in the hands of a good guy to get there fast enough to protect you.
So why is the idea of a gun good when it’s used to protect our President or our country or our police, but bad when it’s used to protect our children in their schools?
They’re our kids. They’re our responsibility. And it’s not just our duty to protect them — it’s our right to protect them.
You know, five years ago, after the Virginia Tech tragedy, when I said we should put armed security in every school, the media called me crazy. But what if, when Adam Lanza started shooting his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday, he had been confronted by qualified, armed security?
Will you at least admit it’s possible that 26 innocent lives might have been spared? Is that so abhorrent to you that you would rather continue to risk the alternative?
Is the press and political class here in Washington so consumed by fear and hatred of the NRA and America’s gun owners that you’re willing to accept a world where real resistance to evil monsters is a lone, unarmed school principal left to surrender her life to shield the children in her care? No one — regardless of personal political prejudice — has the right to impose that sacrifice.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no national, one-size-fits-all solution to protecting our children. But do know this President zeroed out school emergency planning grants in last year’s budget, and scrapped “Secure Our Schools” policing grants in next year’s budget.
With all the foreign aid, with all the money in the federal budget, we can’t afford to put a police officer in every school? Even if they did that, politicians have no business — and no authority — denying us the right, the ability, or the moral imperative to protect ourselves and our loved ones from harm.
Now, the National Rifle Association knows that there are millions of qualified active and retired police; active, reserve and retired military; security professionals; certified firefighters and rescue personnel; and an extraordinary corps of patriotic, trained qualified citizens to join with local school officials and police in devising a protection plan for every school. We can deploy them to protect our kids now. We can immediately make America’s schools safer — relying on the brave men and women of America’s police force.
The budget of our local police departments are strained and resources are limited, but their dedication and courage are second to none and they can be deployed right now.
I call on Congress today to act immediately, to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every school — and to do it now, to make sure that blanket of safety is in place when our children return to school in January.
Before Congress reconvenes, before we engage in any lengthy debate over legislation, regulation or anything else, as soon as our kids return to school after the holiday break, we need to have every single school in America immediately deploy a protection program proven to work — and by that I mean armed security.
Right now, today, every school in the United States should plan meetings with parents, school administrators, teachers and local authorities — and draw upon every resource available — to erect a cordon of protection around our kids right now. Every school will have a different solution based on its own unique situation.
Every school in America needs to immediately identify, dedicate and deploy the resources necessary to put these security forces in place right now. And the National Rifle Association, as America’s preeminent trainer of law enforcement and security personnel for the past 50 years, is ready, willing and uniquely qualified to help.
Our training programs are the most advanced in the world. That expertise must be brought to bear to protect our schools and our children now. We did it for the nation’s defense industries and military installations during World War II, and we’ll do it for our schools today.
The NRA is going to bring all of its knowledge, dedication and resources to develop a model National School Shield Emergency Response Program for every school that wants it. From armed security to building design and access control to information technology to student and teacher training, this multi-faceted program will be developed by the very best experts in their fields.
Former Congressman Asa Hutchinson will lead this effort as National Director of the National School Shield Program, with a budget provided by the NRA of whatever scope the task requires. His experience as a U.S. Attorney, Director of the Drug Enforcement Agency and Undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security will give him the knowledge and expertise to hire the most knowledgeable and credentialed experts available anywhere, to get this program up and running from the first day forward.
If we truly cherish our kids more than our money or our celebrities, we must give them the greatest level of protection possible and the security that is only available with a properly trained — armed — good guy.
Under Asa’s leadership, our team of security experts will make this the best program in the world for protecting our children at school, and we will make that program available to every school in America free of charge.
That’s a plan of action that can, and will, make a real, positive and indisputable difference in the safety of our children — starting right now.
There’ll be time for talk and debate later. This is the time, this is the day for decisive action.
We can’t wait for the next unspeakable crime to happen before we act. We can’t lose precious time debating legislation that won’t work. We mustn’t allow politics or personal prejudice to divide us. We must act now.
For the sake of the safety of every child in America, I call on every parent, every teacher, every school administrator and every law enforcement officer in this country to join us in the National School Shield Program and protect our children with the only line of positive defense that’s tested and proven to work.
Tags: NRA
Hard to argue with any of that.
The only thing I have to add, is that psychopaths didn’t popped out from the box in the moment when the first fighting video game machine was turned on. Such people existed many years before the first computers.
Psychopathy is the disease. Like migraine, rheumatism or hemorrhoid. Somebody could get sick, and circumstances could make it much stronger. Parents and neighbors of such a person could help to prevent the recrudescence or stay ignorant.
Blaming the computer games (or any other single hypothetic reason) is the same kind of blindness and witch-hunt as blaming guns by itself.
All very true Bushman – but I didn’t read those remarks as suggesting that “video games” (as a blanket term) are too blame. He was only pointing out the hypocrisy of the media and “entertainment” industry churning out snuff porn of all kinds, whilst simultaneously attacking peaceful, law-abiding, mentally-well-adjusted, responsible, armed citizens as being the problem.
The point is that there ARE unhinged people out there, and they will be unhinged until they can get treatment and/or be institutionalised – stuffing their heads full of sick, violent movies and such does not do them, or us, any good at all. And this might well be part of the reason why we’re seeing a rise in the horrible mass killings….
I should agree with this version of statement.
Mentally sick person could be treated in the right way or stimulated. And it’s easy to say “let’s ban something to prevent the stimulation”. But we have to remember, that there are many insane people around. As it was stated before, gun selling restrictions can’t change anything because many people already own it. The same thing with psychopaths – they will not disappear. How many responsible citizens including teachers or law enforcement officers could really tell something more than “he’s weird guy” about some person with abnormal behavior and to distinguish regular geek from person with antisocial disorder?
“Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse. And here’s one: it’s called Kindergarten Killers.” Really!!!! Come on Wayne!!! Just Dance 4 outsells 3 out 4 of those games combined…. Thanks for giving Team Blue more bullets to shoot as us….
The NRA, namely LaPierre, completely alienated me when he told me that I was a jack-booted thug, along with some of the tactics they’ve used. But they had me with this one,
until
“a national database of the mentally ill”
That’s WAY huge over-reaction and invasion of privacy, for the vast majority of the mentally ill who aren’t violent criminals, and due to their illness are at a higher risk for actually being the victims of crimes, not the perpetrators. A national database of every mentally ill person in the US would include a huge percentage of the population: depression and anxiety of two of the most common presentations to primary care physicians, and some of the most commonly prescribed meds are those for treating mental illnesses. Mental illness runs such a range, and the ability to identify who is likely to become criminally violent so weak, we’d have list as flawed as our federal no-fly list.
It also feels like one step away from having the JBTs enforcing a law requiring the mentally ill to have to pin on a cloth badge with some kind of yellow symbol on it identifying them as a member of a certain group of people who required extra surveillance because of their perceived threat to the nation whenever they leave their homes, preferably located in a ghetto populated by their own kind for easy monitoring.
And then he went after the entertainment industry “Violent” gaming and entertainment are part of human nature: chess and checkers are strategy and combat on a small board. We wrestled, jousted and plaid rugby with goats’ heads since forever. Porn goes back to the Incas and the Greeks. Look at the underlying themes in Shakespeare and the Bible. Visit any given art museum (yes, any HSLD BAMF can go to an art museum, your balls don’t fall off, nor do you leave limp-wristed and unable to maintain positive trigger control; And you should still carry, some disturbed people have done some disturbing things in art museums, plus there is a huge criminal underground dealing in illegally possessed artwork, artifacts and antiquities). Depictions of violence in any culture goes back to the start of humanity.
That’s why I said about “..to tell something more than ‘he is a weird guy’..”
How about the understanding the difference between, for example, autism-spectrum disorders (making people passive to the society, 1.1% children have it) and antisocial disorders (sometimes making people aggressive to the society, 1% of adults have it). Common knowledge about mental health is not better than in medieval times. And it causes such a statements…
There’s, what I find to be, an interesting discussion going on here: http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/158gva/you_know_who_had_armed_guards_at_their_school/
I’m not sure what the answer is…”banning guns won’t do anything (1999 was the middle of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban). Putting a cop in every school is just economically unrealistic.”
I’m curious as to how the NRA proposes that ‘National School Shield’ initiative be funded? There 99,000 public schools across the United States(http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/pub_overview.asp).
I’m curious as to how the NRA proposes that ‘National School Shield’ initiative be funded?
There are approximately 99,000 public schools across the United States (http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/pub_overview.asp).
ets assume at a minimum you’re going to have 1 guard per school (and that’s not taking into consideration extra guards to cover off sick days, personal leave, or requiring multiple guards for larger institutions, etc.) and assume that the guy is going to earn $12/hour which is on the low end, and doesn’t take into consideration any profit margin if security is contracted to private security , or healthcare/benefits costs if the guards are county/municipal direct employees.
At $12/hour that works out to an average annual salary of $24,960.
Multiply that annual salary by the 99,000 schools these guards would be in and you’ve got a cost of at least $2.47B per year for this ‘National School Shield’.
Great idea, but where’s the money going to come from?
The American taxpayer of course!
Or more likely a tax on firearms and ammunition.
It did strike me as a bit ironic that the NRA would oppose a national database of gun ownership, but would propose a national database of the mentally-ill – effectively potentially putting anybody with any mental health problem on the same status as convicted felons…
The other problem, as others have pointed out, is that “mental illness” spans such a wide gamut. Should someone suffering from temporary depression or anxiety be denied a firearms license, or have their guns confiscated because of it? Or should they be on some sort of police “watch” list?
On the other hand, there are clearly some people with serious mental / behavioral problems who are not on a “watch” list or flagged as not suitable for a firearms license when they should be.
So, somebody needs to work out an effective and equitable solution somehow…
The problem with such a database is potentially much wider.
There are countries, where some form of databases of drug-addicted and mentally ill exists. But it causes the situation, when drug-addicted or mentally ill people trying to avoid getting in that DB by avoiding the professional medical help (because in case of getting in that DB, they will not get the driver license, at least).
If any person will get in such a DB automatically after getting the diagnosis from some list, any veteran with PTSD (20% of Soldiers, deployed in past six years) will be there. How many Soldiers will avoid medical help in this case?
If there should be some “commission” that people should pass in case of mental illness to keep or to loose the right of gun ownership after getting some diagnosis – who will be in such a commission, who will pay for their work and how reliable will they be?
To be clear – I think, that people with specific mental disorders should not have the same easy access to guns as responsive people do. But people, who speaks so easily about “national DB” or something like that, definitely know so few about it.
Well, we may have to raise taxes a bit….Oh no!!!! Raise taxes in order to fund something! I would gladly pay a few extra bucks each year in school taxes to have a guard there from 7-4 5 days a week.
There you go again, blaming video games.
I used to play Kirby on my NES as a kid, and occasionally still do for nostalgia, but you don’t see me going around swallowing people and beasts whole.
Why is it that when political figures want to find some thing to blame for violent acts, they focus on games released 20 years ago? He did notice Bulletstorm (possibly thanks to its name and ad campaign at the time), but that game was basically a low-brow comedy with guns.
Blaming an entertainment medium is an exercise in pointlessness. If some people really are affected by “violent media,” then they would have gone violent regardless.
I have played video games since I was 4. And that was a tank game on the Odyssey 2! Over twenty years of videogaming, and I’ve never attacked anyone.