Lawrence O'Donnell: NRA's LaPierre Is 'The Lobbyist For Mass Murderers'

By Noel Sheppard | December 22, 2012 | 08:22

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The hatred the media have for Wayne LaPierre knows no bounds.
Hours after the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association presented a strategy to protect America's students from the kind of massacre that happened in Newtown, Connecticut, a week ago, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell opened his program Friday by accusing the gun advocate of being "the lobbyist for mass murderers" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: Here is the lobbyist for mass murderers, the only lobbyist that mass murderers have, calling actors, actresses, people whose pensions might be invested in mutual funds, quote, "complicit co-conspirators" in these murders. […]

What kind of desperate cornered rat would dare to mention that the Sandy Hook shooter could have used a more powerful bullet? […]

Wayne LaPierre is the lobbyist who made it possible for the mass murderer in the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater to be able to shoot and kill and wound so many people without reloading even once.

The law Senator Dianne Feinstein pushed through Congress in 1994 made large capacity ammunition delivery systems illegal. Wayne LaPierre made them legal 10 years ago. Wayne LaPierre made no public statement whatsoever after the movie theater mass murder, after that mass murderer so successfully used the weapon systems that Wayne LaPierre made available to him.

So the NRA and LaPierre are responsible for the 1994 assault weapons ban not being reenacted after it sunset in 2004?
How about the members of Congress, Mr. O'Donnell?
In particular, how about Democrats that took control of both chambers in 2007 enjoying a filibuster-proof Senate while they also had their man in the White House part of that time?
For two solid years, the Democrats had more power in Washington than any party has had in decades.
If they were able to get unpopular pieces of legislation such as a stimulus package and ObamaCare passed, certainly they could have reenacted the assault weapons ban if they so desired irrespective of the NRA and LaPierre.
But O'Donnell didn't address that inconvenient truth Friday. The only person in his sights was LaPierre:

O'DONNELL: Every day since 1977, Wayne LaPierre has been making sure that mad men in America can fire any gun they want, and any bullet they want, at any children they want, at any teachers, at police officers, at the president. […]

It is now impossible to count how many people Wayne LaPierre owes an apology to. There are all of those who have been killed by weapons that became available after he made sure the assault weapons ban would not be renewed. There are the parents of the dead, the brothers and sisters of the dead, the children of the dead. […]

Of course, there are no words. No words. And the apology will never come, and we can now see through that psychotically self-centered statement that Wayne LaPierre made, quote, "I will lose more on the election battlefield than our nation has lost in any battle, any time, anywhere" -- we now see that the mind that could shape that sentence is almost, almost as twisted, almost as damaged as the minds of the mass murderers Wayne LaPierre keeps supplied so well in America.

For those that can stand it, here's the entire transcript courtesy LexisNexis:

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LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, HOST: At 9:30 Eastern, Americans stopped to remember the women and children lost a week ago to a mass murderer`s bullets. Not long after that, the man who made sure that the shooter was equipped with the tools of mass murder made a speech in Washington that did not include a single word of apology.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O`DONNELL: There is no chance, no chance, that Wayne LaPierre will choose to say what is best for the country or our children.

WAYNE LAPIERRE, NRA: Since when did the gun become a bad word?

TAMRON HALL, MSNBC ANCHOR: The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun --

LAPIERRE: -- is a good guy with a gun.

HALL: -- is a good guy with a gun.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s the good guys against the bad guys and everyone should have a gun.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t even know where to begin.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The NRA embarrassed itself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very haunting and disturbing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Basically we are all targets.

LAPIERRE: And our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we need to have a gun on us at all times.

LAPIERRE: I call on Congress today to put armed police officers in every school in the nation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What does that say about me?

LAPIERRE: The media called me crazy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These guys are nuts.

LAPIERRE: The media called me crazy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This guy is whacked.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He trolled (ph) the press corps.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was not a press conference.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was a commercial.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: More of a commercial.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He didn`t even take questions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The most bizarre press briefings I have ever witnessed.

LAPIERRE: Since when did the gun before a bad word?

HALL: Wayne LaPierre blamed the media, video games.

LAPIERRE: Violent video games.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are not the only culture that has video games.

LAPIERRE: But since when did the gun become a bad word, bad word, bad word?

(BELL TOLLING)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O`DONNELL: At 11:02 a.m. Eastern Time today, the world stopped today to listen to this man. Well, OK, the world didn`t stop, but Washington certainly stopped to listen. And all the cable networks stopped what they were doing to cover every word of what he had to say. And here is how he began.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAPIERRE: The National Rifle Association, 4 million mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, joined the nation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Wait a minute. Four million people? In a country of 300 million people, a guy who represents 4 million people gets every camera in Washington?

And he doesn`t really represent them, he just tricks them out of some dues money with nonstop lies. Most of those 4 million people disagree with him about a lot of stuff.

When is the last time this guy got every camera in Washington and live coverage from all cable news networks for something he had to say? He is the CEO of the AARP, which has 40 million members, 10 times the size of the NRA. And the AARP members have more to worry about in the budget negotiations in Washington this week than the NRA members have ever had to worry about.

But if Barry Rand steps up to a microphone to say something about it, I guarantee you no network is going to go live with that.

And if this guy, who was actually elected to represent 12 million members of the AFL-CIO today, no one will go live to him either. And so what did this man have to say today? This man who got all of this attention, this man who is the CEO of a $200 million business that plays with the dues money of 4 million people, most of whom disagree with this man on some of the issues he cares about most.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAPIERRE: Now, we must speak. For the safety of our nation`s children, 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?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: And then he suggested something that you cannot do right now starting today. Put a police officer in every school in America. That would require hiring at least 132,183 new police officers. Now, just based on the median salary for police officers in America, that would cost $6.7 billion a year. There is not a town or city or state in America that has extra money lying around today to hire extra police officers.

If $6.7 billion had to be raised from new taxes, then, of course, Grover Norquist would use all of his powers to oppose those taxes -- Grover Norquist, who is, of course, a member of the board of the National Rifle Association.

So, the CEO of the NRA took to a microphone in Washington today to suggest a solution to the massacres of children in our schools and the solution is something he and his friends would not be willing to pay for. And he and his friends would attack any politician who attempted to pay for it.

He reached for a variety of ways to make his point.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAPIERRE: We care about our money. So we protect our banks with armed guards.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: I don`t know about you, but I cannot remember the last time I was in a bank that had an armed guard. All banks had them when I was a kid. And the armed guards couldn`t stop bank robberies then. What stopped bank robberies in America was not armed guards, it was video cameras and automatic locking safes that cannot be opened no matter how much you scare a teller with your little gun.

And I`m not just talking about small town banks that I go into. New York City banks do not have armed guards anymore.

He went on to cite an 18-year-old movie and a 12-year-old movie that were not exactly blockbusters at the box office as the reasons why children are being shot and killed -- killed in an elementary school last week. He talked about people in the movie business, and stockholders of entertainment companies as, quote, "complicit co-conspirators in the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School."

Here is the lobbyist for mass murderers, the only lobbyist that mass murderers have, calling actors, actresses, people whose pensions might be invested in mutual funds, quote, "complicit co-conspirators" in these murders.

And then there was this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAPIERRE: The media calls semiautomatic firearms "machine guns". They claim these civilian semiautomatic firearms are used by the military. 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: That was aimed directly at the NRA membership, directly at the people whose dues allow him to take home a million a year. Most of those people know more about guns than most reporters do.

He believes that if you can show one reporter using language about firearms that isn`t strictly, technically accurate, then he can discount to his membership everything that the American news media might say about guns. He wants to show NRA members a flash of his pretend ballistics expertise by making fun of the idea that the 223 round is one of the most powerful rifle calibers.

I am sure there are bigger bullets than the 223, but every 223 fired in Sandy Hook Elementary School came out of the barrel of that assault rifle, at three times the speed of sound, 3,200 feet per second.

Is this really something to quibble about in how powerful a bullet is when it is heading toward a 6-year-old at the speed of 3,200 feet per second? What kind of desperate cornered rat would dare to mention that the Sandy Hook shooter could have used a more powerful bullet?

Could have what? Done more damage? Could have what? Made the bodies of 6-year-olds even more difficult to identify?

So today, the NRA announced that it has a solution. Complete solution to gun violence in America, mass murders in America. Their solution is the national school shield program, a police officer with a gun in every school.

Now, he didn`t announce a national movie theater shield program with a police officer in every movie theater in America. Wayne LaPierre has in fact never spoken one word about 6-year-old Veronica Moser Sullivan, who was murdered in that movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, along with 11 other people, and 58 wounded, 58.

All of that, death and savagery was delivered from an ammunition delivery system so big it isn`t called a magazine. It`s called a drum. It holds 100 rounds.

Wayne LaPierre is the lobbyist who made it possible for the mass murderer in the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater to be able to shoot and kill and wound so many people without reloading even once.

After that mass murder, so successfully used the weapon systems that Wayne LaPierre made available to him. Instead, Wayne LaPierre simply sent out a letter, a letter asking for money, asking for contributions to the NRA over and above dues. And as with every solicitation of money Wayne LaPierre has ever made, he lied to every poor fool who fell for it.

He said in his letter asking for money, quote, "Nothing less than the future of our country and our freedom will be at stake."

Wayne LaPierre did not announce today a national shopping mall parking lot shield program, because Wayne LaPierre has no suggestion about how to prevent or even in some way inhibit, maybe just somehow reduce the possibility of what happened to 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, who was murdered because she chose to stand in a parking lot in Tucson, Arizona, and listen to her Congresswoman Gabby Giffords.

Wayne LaPierre is all for having a police officer protect 9-year-old girls in school, but anywhere else a 9-year-old goes in America, a movie theater, a shopping mall, she is on her own. And we know now, she is on her own against the best equipped mass murderers in the history of the human race.

That`s right. We`re number one. USA, USA, we`re number one. No country in the world has better equipped mass murderers than the United States of America. And that is thanks to the lifetime work of Wayne LaPierre.

Every day since 1977, Wayne LaPierre has been making sure that mad men in America can fire any gun they want, and any bullet they want, at any children they want, at any teachers, at police officers, at the president.

The solution Wayne LaPierre suggested today to stop school shootings has already been tried in many places across America, including Columbine High School, where 13 years ago 12 students and one teacher were shot dead. Columbine High School had an armed sheriff`s deputy at the school that day and every day prior to that. But when the moment came, the deputy could do something to stop the mass murders.

There was a good guy with a gun in the parking lot in Tucson when the madman there opened fire on Gabby Giffords and the men and women and children in the parking lot. But the good guy with the gun could do nothing to stop what was happening because he realized he could not get off a clean shot. A shot that he couldn`t be sure would not kill one of the innocent bystanders.

Stuck in the middle of Wayne LaPierre`s speech today was his bottom line. He said that gun and ammunition control advocates, quote, "perpetuates the notion that one more gun ban and one more law imposed on peaceable, lawful people will protect us."

So there is Wayne LaPierre saying that he is opposed to anymore laws. Not one more law, not a law banning the 100-round ammunition drum that was used in the Colorado movie theater. Not a law banning the 30-round ammunition magazines used in Sandy Hook Elementary.

Not a law banning assault weapons. Not a law tightening access to ammunition. Not any kind of law that would make it in any way even slightly more difficult for a mad man to obtain the very best tools in the world for up close mass murder. Not one more law.

And then there are millions -- truly, millions and millions more, because in his most vile fundraising letter before the last presidential election, Wayne LaPierre actually said this about what would happen if Barack Obama was reelected president of the United States. Quote, "The night of November 6th, 2012, you and I will lose more on the election battlefield than our nation has lost in any battle any time, anywhere."

There is Wayne LaPierre claiming on election night that he, who of course avoided service in the war of his era, the Vietnam War, that he lost more on election night this year than, quote, "on any battlefield in the history of our nation." Wayne LaPierre lost more on election night than 1.3 million Americans who have lost their lives in war.

He lost more than the relatives and the descendents of those 1.3 million Americans. He lost more than all the amputees, double amputees, brain-damaged amputees that our wars have produced.

How could Wayne LaPierre ever, ever find the words to deliver an adequate apology for that filthy insult to the American war dead, and to those of us who have lost loved ones in war? Those of us who have lost loved ones in the war that Wayne LaPierre personally avoided service in.

1 comment:

Larry ConleyDecember 23, 2012 at 9:12 AM
"In particular, how about Democrats that took control of both chambers in 2007 enjoying a filibuster-proof Senate while they also had their man in the White House part of that time?" There are few myths more popular on the right than this one. There were 58 Democrats and 2 Independents. One of these, Joe LIEberman, was unreliable and several so-called "conservative Democrats" were completely unwilling to vote for any gun control measures. Mr. LaPierre actively worked to convince politicians to allow the assault weapons ban to lapse and then worked to elect more who would keep from returning. Furthermore, why should sixty votes be required on such a matter? This is a result of Republican distortion of Senate procedure to the point of extreme dysfunction.

TRUTH BE TOLD

TRUTH BE TOLD

Saturday, December 22, 2012