After NRA lobbyist Wayne LaPierre attacked MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell at this year’s CPAC, O’Donnell responded in his Rewrite segment and pretty well ripped LaPierre to shreds for his part in contributing to the number of deaths after that tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in Tucson, Arizona.
O’DONNELL: Time for tonight’s Rewrite. In Washington during the Conservative Political Action Committee better known as CPAC, I actually made an appearance of sorts. It happened while Washington’s lobbyist in favor of murderers’ rights to always use the gun of their choice, Wayne LaPierre, the Executive Vice President of the NRA, was speaking about the calls for gun and ammunition control in the aftermath of the Tucson massacre.
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You just heard the NRA’s lie, now some facts. A Justice Department study on the federal assault weapons ban, which was law for 10 years found “Gun murders declined 10.3 percent in states without preexisting assault weapons bans.” 10.3 percent. Another study by the Justice Department in 2004 concluded “If the ban is lifted, gun and magazine manufacturers may reintroduce assault weapons models and large capacity magazines, perhaps in substantial numbers.”
And that is exactly what the merchants of death did; reintroduced assault weapons and the high capacity magazines that allowed Jared Loughner to take 31 shots, 31, before he had to stop and reload.
On the NRA’s web site, gun violence cheerleader Wayne LaPierre says “It’s time to acknowledge what we know in our hearts to be true.” That “The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun.”
Wayne, there was a good guy on the scene that day, in Tucson with a gun, but there wasn’t anything he could do. It was too dangerous to fire. He could have hit an innocent bystander. A good guy with a gun did not stop Jared Loughner.
It was the moment that Loughner had to reload that he became stoppable and he was stopped by a 61 year old woman who wrestled another high capacity magazine out of his hand as he tried to reload, and an unarmed 74 year old man, who had already been grazed by one of Loughner’s bullets. The second, the second Jared Loughner had to stop and reload, he became an unarmed man.
Wayne LaPierre wants that reloading moment to come after crazed gunmen fire as many shots as the desires of high capacity magazines will allow them to. If Jared Loughner had tried to do this in 2003 when those magazines were illegal, he would have had to reload after firing 10 bullets.
That means he would have been stopped, stopped, after firing ten bullets and Tucson would have seen fewer funerals. People in Tucson were shot and killed thanks to the relentless lobbying work of Wayne LaPierre and his blood-drenched organization.
Wayne LaPierre has devoted his adult life, every day of his adult life since 1977, every working day, to making sure madmen in America can fire as many bullets as they want without having to reload.
Wayne LaPierre runs an organization that is devoted to expanding the profits of the merchants of death. Gun manufacturers pay his salary so he can pretend to be representing the rights of hunters who in fact have absolutely no use for the kind of high capacity magazine Jared Loughner used.
Wayne LaPierre is not your run of the mill lobbyist. Oh no. Most lobbyists are good and decent people in fact. Some are every bit as sleazy as you might imagine. And some are criminals, like Jack Abramoff, but none, none, have done more harm to America, than Wayne LaPierre.
He more than any individual law maker is responsible for this country’s insane gun laws that allow insane people to mow down Congresswomen and nine year old girls in Safeway parking lots.
Wayne LaPierre is morally guilty of being an accessory before the fact of Jared Loughner’s shooting spree in Tucson. And every member of Congress who welcomes him into the office for a little lobbying session, is taking one step closer to the devil.
