Clearly, the National Rifle Association (NRA) believes it can overcome the fledgling #NeverAgain campaign, launched by surviving Parkland, FL students, if it just continues to bully and lie as it has done every time a mass shooting has occurred in the U.S.
NRA officials have taken the offensive, going so far as accusing the "mainstream media" (Trump's favorite label for the legitimate press) of using for their own purposes the tragedy at a Parkland high school, where a teenager armed with an AR-15 assault rifle killed 17 people.
"They don't care about our school children," said NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, referring to the media in a speech this morning. "They want to make us less free."
Worse than that, however, the NRA released an ad this morning stating that "the mainstream media love mass shootings," saying the media benefits from such horrible events "to juice their ratings and push their agenda."
I've been around Washington politics for decades. That is one of the most cynical, nasty, lying statements I've ever heard from anyone. La Pierre is disgusting. It tells me that the NRA is nervous about the #NeverAgain movement. It will be very difficult for many, many lawmakers to ignore -- let's hope.
Further, LaPierre said the NRA, which refuses to support any restrictions AT ALL on guns, including military grade assault weapons, had the gall to say this:
"We at the NRA are Americans who continue to mourn, and care, and work every day to contribute to real solutions to this practical problem. Do we really love our money and our celebrities more than we love our children?"
In the case of the NRA, the answer is obviously "yes". They are funded by the gun industry; it’s their reason for existence. And in the case of the politicians, mostly Republicans, who mindlessly do the NRA’s bidding in state legislatures and Congress, the answer also is "yes". They take millions from the NRA for their campaigns and are afraid to do anything that crosses them.
It doesn’t matter if kids are slaughtered in schools like the one in Parkland. Their irrational refusal to prevent even children from buying an AR-15 or similar assault weapon proves that.
And so, after Trump's oh-so-sincere "listening session" yesterday at the White House with the parents and friends of school shooting victims, he tweeted, "What many people don't understand, or don't want to understand, is that Wayne, Chris and the folks who work so hard at the @NRA are Great People and Great American Patriots. They love our Country and will do the right thing. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
Oh, please. Wayne LaPierre and his @NRA cronies are not patriots. They are killers. They have the blood of hundreds of school children and mass shooting victims on their hands because of their determination to protect the Second Amendment.
I ask you this. When was the Second Amendment written? It was written in 1791 when guns were muskets that had to be loaded one shot at a time, that's when. You cannot tell me that banning, even just restricting, the sale of AR 15s to ordinary citizens infringes upon what the authors of our Constitution had in mind back then.
The question is simple. What is more important? Our kids or somebody's ability to purchase a military style assault weapon that has no purpose other than to kill people?
Today, the #NeverAgain kids want to know whether adults today will act to protect them? They are nearing or at voting age. You can expect their voices to be heard -- and loudly -- in the upcoming November Congressional elections, if not before.