NRA: "WE NEED MORE GUNS" - A pathetic response to the tragedy at Sandy Hook

Out of respect for the Newtown victims and families, the National Rifle Association waited one week before blaming everything and everyone except guns. The NRA says it kept respectfully silent for a week, while others, presumably gun-control advocates, “tried to exploit the tragedy for political gain.” NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre was at the microphone Friday, giving a poorly-timed recruitment speech disguised as a news conference.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," said LaPierre. He went on to say that the solution for schools is to put an armed police officer in “every single school in the nation”. Estimates have put the cost of doing this as high as $18 billion a year, and it should be noted that Columbine High School had armed guards in 1999, so a shoot-out between good guys and bad guys might not work.

While LaPierre was explaining the need for more guns, the rebuttal to this argument was being made by some guy walking up and down a rural Pennsylvania road shooting people. The shooter killed three people before he was fatally shot in a gunfight with state troopers. The gunman was stopped, but as in most of these types of incidents, too late.

The massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School was the last straw for a majority of Americans. Most want some sort of change in the gun laws. The NRA's poorly timed “news conference” turned out to be a public relations disaster. In the context of tragedy, the country wants a solution, not a sales pitch meant to benefit gun manufacturers.

As protestors repeatedly interrupted his speech, shouting that the NRA was “killing our kids,” LaPierre spewed blame everywhere except for where it belongs, going after the media, video games, and music videos. The solution is more guns - in schools, in businesses, and apparently in Chuck E. Cheeses.

LaPierre makes about $1 million a year as an NRA executive, so he must be doing this for the money. And where does that money come from? Gun owners, gun lobbyists, gun manufacturers... Do any of them have kids? Do they even care? The membership of the NRA can't possibly stand in unity with their cold-hearted buffoon of a spokesman.

If “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”, then what happens to the people standing in the middle? And how do you stop a crazed lunatic with an assault rifle and a kevlar vest? Let's hope your aim is good, because you might only get one shot.