I just got done watching the NRA press conference and all I can do is shake my head. The first thing I would like to know is why does this group have the power they do? The NRA only has 4 million members. That’s almost 1/2 of what MoveOn.org has, yet they have so much more power.

But putting that little fact aside, here’s what I took away from what NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre had to say:

Let’s blame those pesky “gun free zone” signs

Yes, he actually blamed those. He said it invites in these shooters. Just like deer crossing signs tell the deer exactly where to cross.

We must blame movies and video games, not guns.

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What he failed to mention was that these same movies and games are available in about every other country, yet they don’t have the violence we do.

Armed police in every school – By January!

This was a biggie. He wants Congress to pass legislation putting police in every single school. He said nothing of this being public only and/or all. On just public k-12 schools, we have over 98,000. Police average close to $50,000/year in salary alone. This doesn’t account for benefits, training, etc. So if we go with that $50,000/year, that’s $5 billion per year we must come up with just to put one officer in each school.

He also said “imagine if there was an armed guard at Sandy Hook?” Well we can. It was called Columbine, where there was an armed guard. He managed to fire 2 shots and then ran! Experiment failed Mr. LaPierre.

Final thoughts

The NRA is doing what the NRA always does – pushing for more guns and absolving themselves of any fault. This is the same failed NRA that we have had for the past couple of decades. It’s time to remove them from the conversation, as their numbers and words are meaningless anymore. It’s time to remove their lobbying power and the only way to do that is for our leaders to ignore them. Please, can our leaders do that?