NRA against ban on semi-automatic arms
chicago — Dana Loesch is the new public face of the National Rifle Association, an organisation long associated with older White men.
At 39, she’s poised, photogenic and a skilled public speaker, yet she’s not softening the message of the NRA as it becomes an increasingly active voice in the nation’s culture wars, with positions on everything from immigration to the media.
In the aftermath of the shooting deaths of 17 people, mostly students, at a Florida high school, it’s Loesch who has been the NRA’s main messenger.
The NRA despatched Loesch last week to a CNN town hall, where she was questioned by students and parents from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the site of the Valentine’s Day shooting. Often brash and combative, Loesch was measured and even-tempered, though she was booed when she left the stage. The day after the televised town hall, she was back in her more familiar mode, speaking to a far friendlier audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington. Loesch defiantly defended NRA’s 5 million members, who she said “will not be gaslighted into thinking that we’re responsible for a tragedy that we had nothing to do with.”
And, her voice dripping with condescension, she addressed journalists from the mainstream media, who she said “love mass shootings” because “crying White mothers are ratings gold.”
This (Florida shooting) is not the fault, nor are 5 million innocent law-abiding americans culpable for this Dana Loesch, spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association
Her criticism of the media recalled an NRA video last summer in which she attacked The New York Times in a way that some on the right and the left feared could incite violence. In the video, Loesch said NRA members have “had it” with the newspaper’s “fake news” and warned: “Consider this the shot across your proverbial bow . ... In short? We’re coming for you.”
Loesch was back on television on Sunday, defending NRA members and arguing against calls to ban semi-automatic weapons like the one used in the Florida school shooting. “This is not the fault, nor are 5 million innocent law-abiding Americans culpable for this,” she said on ABC’s “This Week.” In response, David Hogg, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, said students were focused on countering Loesch as they campaign for tighter gun laws.
“If you listen to her speak, she’s not really saying anything. She’s sounding positive and confident and that’s what she wants the people in the NRA to believe, her 5 million plus members,” Hogg said on CNN. “She wants them to think that she’s on their side, but she’s not. She’s actually working with the gun manufacturers.”
Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said she was not in the least reassured by Loesch’s appearance at last week’s town hall, especially after she attacked the media the following day. “She’s younger. She’s a woman and a mom. She’s television-ready,” Watts said. —