Wayne LaPierre: Liar, Fearmonger

Yesterday, I argued that the NRA's Wayne LaPierre's arguments were almost literally insane. In an op-ed at The Daily Caller, he painted a picture of America as a post-apocalyptic landscape straight out of The Road Warrior or The Walking Dead. It was seriously demented. People who actually believe this should never have access to a firearm, because whatever gland it is that pumps pure, animal fear into your body, they've got a really big one and that makes them dangerous. Fearful people are jumpy people. Jumpy people have itchy trigger fingers. It's not the courageous man who shoots his wife in the night because he thought he heard a burglar. We shouldn't worry about the people LaPierre was fearmongering over, we should worry about the gun-happy nutbars who bought it.

But the NRA, with LaPierre at the front, has been leading an all-out assault on any gun regulation at all, meaningful or not. So Wayne's nightmarish op-ed wasn't the only PR piece he's put out there lately. He also felt the need to respond to the President's State of the Union address, because I guess he's the second most important man in America -- or something. If you need more evidence that he's a crackpot, there ya go. He thinks you watched the State of the Union and thought, "I wonder what Wayne LaPierre thinks? I simply must know!"

But crackpot or not, what we did learn from his SOTU response yesterday is that he's a shameless liar. Take a look at this lede from the L.A. Times:

Wayne LaPierre, a top official of the National Rifle Assn., lobbed a blistering attack on President Obama's gun proposals Thursday, accusing him of exploiting the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting to roll back gun rights.

"It was only a few weeks ago when they were marketing their anti-gun agenda as a way of protecting schoolchildren from harm. That charade ended at the State of the Union when the president himself exposed their fraudulent intentions," said LaPierre, addressing the National Wild Turkey Federation convention in Nashville. He criticized Obama for not mentioning school safety Tuesday.

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"It's not about keeping kids safe in school. That wasn't even mentioned in the president's speech," he said. "They only care about their decades-long, decades-old gun control agenda: Ban every gun they can, tax every gun sold and register every American gun owner."

First, when an argument involves mindreading, you know it's crap. LaPierre knows liberals want to "ban every gun they can," not because anyone's said so, but because of Wayne's amazing ESP powers. But that's not the big lie. The big lie is that Obama didn't mention keeping kids safe in schools during the SOTU. Let's do something crazy, like look at the transcript and check:

Of course, what I’ve said tonight matters little if we don’t come together to protect our most precious resource: our children. It has been two months since Newtown. I know this is not the first time this country has debated how to reduce gun violence. But this time is different. Overwhelming majorities of Americans -- Americans who believe in the Second Amendment -- have come together around common-sense reform, like background checks that will make it harder for criminals to get their hands on a gun. (Applause.) Senators of both parties are working together on tough new laws to prevent anyone from buying guns for resale to criminals. Police chiefs are asking our help to get weapons of war and massive ammunition magazines off our streets, because these police chiefs, they’re tired of seeing their guys and gals being outgunned.

Each of these proposals deserves a vote in Congress. (Applause.) Now, if you want to vote no, that’s your choice. But these proposals deserve a vote. Because in the two months since Newtown, more than a thousand birthdays, graduations, anniversaries have been stolen from our lives by a bullet from a gun -- more than a thousand.

One of those we lost was a young girl named Hadiya Pendleton. She was 15 years old. She loved Fig Newtons and lip gloss. She was a majorette. She was so good to her friends they all thought they were her best friend. Just three weeks ago, she was here, in Washington, with her classmates, performing for her country at my inauguration. And a week later, she was shot and killed in a Chicago park after school, just a mile away from my house.

Hadiya’s parents, Nate and Cleo, are in this chamber tonight, along with more than two dozen Americans whose lives have been torn apart by gun violence. They deserve a vote. They deserve a vote. (Applause.) Gabby Giffords deserves a vote. (Applause.) The families of Newtown deserve a vote. (Applause.) The families of Aurora deserve a vote. (Applause.) The families of Oak Creek and Tucson and Blacksburg, and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence –- they deserve a simple vote. (Applause.) They deserve a simple vote.

Hey Wayne, I kind of think you're wrong about that one. And I kind of think it's deliberate. That makes you a liar.

Wow, a dishonest Washington lobbyist. Imagine that.

-Wisco

[original image courtesy of Gage Skidmore]


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