Newtown shooting: Gun lobby defiant as US remembers

[Jazzy]

NRA defiant

Wayne LaPierre, NRA: Good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns

In Washington on Friday, influential National Rifle Association (NRA) broke a week-long silence with a robust defence of its pro-gun position.



Wayne LaPierre, chief executive of the NRA, criticised politicians who had exploited the tragedy in Newtown for political gain and took aim at laws designating schools as gun-free zones.



They tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk, he said.



Mr LaPierre called for a national database of the mentally ill and blamed violent video games and films for portraying murder as a way of life.



He spoke out against the media for demonising lawful gun owners, and for suggesting a ban on certain types of weapon would be effective.



The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, Mr LaPierre told reporters.



Congress should authorise funding for armed security in every school in the country, he said, adding that an extraordinary corps of trained professionals could be drawn from active and retired police officers, security professionals and firefighters around the country.

Rest of article with video



Do you agree or disagree with Mr LaPierre? Please explain your choice.

 

[Headliner]

Parents (including an NRA supporter) whose children escaped Sandy Hook massacre express reservations about gun lobby leader's call to install guards armed with guns in every school in America<div class=feedflare>
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View the full article

 

[Fatal Dawn]

Disagree. I think more guns in schools has the potential of putting everyone at greater risk. Aside from that and the fact that it virtually undermines all efforts of the past to regulate gun availability, but who is to then stop the people you arm in schools if they turn around and attempt the same thing from their end?



The NRA just wants to sell more guns. They have been so willing to scrutinize every nook and cranny of this case; from the video games the suspect had to his mental health background instead of turning attention to the obvious factor of gun availability.

 

[Evil Eye]

but who is to then stop the people you arm in schools if they turn around and attempt the same thing from their end?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Presumably the other guards. Nonetheless, the very thought that this would be necessary tells us there is something very, very wrong with society.

I recently read something about a teacher who brought an AK-47 to school to protect the children. I think that was in Afghanistan. Now, as far as I know, the US hasn't been in any war on its own soil in ages...

It's not guns, it's not games, it's a frigging mindset.

his mental health background

I would say that's the most important factor, though I can see what you're getting at.

 

[Fatal Dawn]

That is not correct. The NRA is not about selling guns.

Albeit indirectly, but there is no denying the NRA’s close ties with the gun industry and lobbyists. Suggesting otherwise would be underestimating the potent synergy of a powerful industry and a great sphere of influence (take the medical-industrial complex, for example. If I’m a doctor trying to advocate a specific drug, I don’t need to be the pharmacist handing you drugs over the counter to sell it to you.). They are not just preaching to the choir. From their recent responses it seems to me that the NRA is encouraging people who don’t have guns to get guns (evidenced by their quip: arm more good guys to stop the bad guys). Not only that, but they lobby against virtually any sort of legislation that would effectively hinder the gun industry in general. Helped by the NRA's lobbying, gun sales have increased even in this economic recession. Since the shooting the NRA’s membership reportedly has increased as well as gun purchases.

I mean, the strongest defense of the Second Amendment is the marketplace, he said. And there's no clearer picture about how average American citizens feel about their Second Amendment rights than lines at gun stores all over the country right now because they fear the Obama administration's second term is coming after their freedom.



All of this has the effect of bringing the quarter-billion-dollar-a-year NRA and the $12 billion-a-year gun industry closer together.



Sturm Ruger, known especially for its handguns, had a yearlong promotion in which it gave the NRA a dollar for each gun sold. The total exceeded $1.2 million.

http://www.wbur.org/...ra-gun-industry

The industry has, in turn, been a big supporter of the N.R.A. It has contributed between $14.7 million and $38.9 million to an N.R.A.-corporate-giving campaign since 2005, according to a report published last year by the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit group that advocates greater gun control. The estimate is based on a study of the N.R.A.’s “Ring of Freedom” program and very likely understates the industry’s total financial support for the association, which does not publicly disclose a comprehensive list of its donors and how much they have given.

…

Businesses and special-interest groups often cloak their profit motives in the garb of constitutional rights — think Big Tobacco and its opposition to restrictions on smoking in public places and bold warnings on cigarette packages. http://www.nytimes.c...ation.html?_r=0

 

[DrLeftover]

We really need KNIFE REGISTRATION to protect the children!

22 children and elderly woman stabbed outside primary school by Chinese knifeman

• No motive was given for the stabbings, which echo a string of similar assaults against schoolchildren in 2010
  
• Latest in series of similar attacks at Chinese schools and kindergartens
  

PUBLISHED: 09:31 EST, 14 December 2012 | UPDATED: 10:12 EST, 15 December 2012

http://www.dailymail...e-knifeman.html

 

[DrLeftover]

Liberals

David Gregory mocked the NRA's Wayne LaPierre for proposing that armed guards be at every school in America. But the NBC host seems to have no problem with armed guards protecting his kids everyday where they attend school in Washington, D.C.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs...s-sends-kids-high-security-school_691057.html

 

[Bluezone777]

The whole idea that gun control works is only true if you assume that all people follow laws. Since this is not the case, then the only people who will disarm are those who obey laws and seeing as how murder is illegal suggests that people who would obey gun control laws were already obeying the do not murder laws when they were in the possession of a gun so how is the issue with gun violence fixed by gun control laws?



Another issue is the fact that gun control laws that are strict in one country but not strict in the surrounding countries will ensure that illegal gun selling become more profitable then it already is. If making drugs illegal does not stop their use then why would making guns illegal produce a different result?



PS: The possibility of being armed even if you aren't will ensure that some would decide against attacking you and instead look for a more likely to be unarmed person so regardless of your choice to be armed or not. You benefit from being able to own a firearm even if you decide against doing so.