DEMS/GUNS/NRA: “The head of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, leveled a searing indictment on Thursday [2-22-18] against liberal Democrats, the news media and political opportunists he said were joined together in a socialist plot to ‘eradicate all individual freedoms.’
Mr. LaPierre’s remarks, his first since a gunman took the lives of 17 people at a Florida high school last week, seemed aimed at blunting the rising public pressure for stricter gun control. Conservatives, he said, needed to push back even as liberals tried to smear them…
The solution Mr. LaPierre offered was not to pass new laws but to better enforce the existing background check system and, he said, “harden our schools” with more armed guards…
Mr. LaPierre’s pugnacious appearance appeared to signal a tactical shift for the N.R.A., which had officially remained mostly quiet in the week after the Florida shooting, even as a movement of young people, including survivors of the massacre, made emotional pleas for gun control. The organization typically uses the first few days after an episode of mass gun violence to lie low before it comes out hard in opposition to any new gun control measures…
Mr. LaPierre, who for around three decades has been the N.R.A.’s public face of unwavering resistance to tighter restrictions on guns, used his speech to play to the fear and mistrust that many on the right have toward government.”
-Jeremy W. Peters, “N.R.A. Chief, Wayne LaPierre, Offers Fierce Defense of 2nd Amendment,” The New York Times online,” Feb. 22, 2018