USA TODAY International Edition
NRA meeting spurs protests
Father of Florida school shooting victim heckled by gun rights group
DALLAS – The father of one of the teenage victims of the Parkland, Fla., massacre mounted a stage only four blocks from the National Rifle Association convention Saturday to call for gun reform as gun rights supporters heckled him with a bullhorn.
“My daughter was hunted at school,” Fred Guttenberg said, recalling the death of 14-year-old Jaime at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14.
He said he is still haunted by the fact that he can’t remember if he told Jaime he loved her as she rushed off to school the day of the shooting, when she and 16 other people died.
Guttenberg described how she was shot and killed on the school’s third floor, a bullet from an AR-15 assaultstyle rifle piercing her side and severing her spine, killing her instantly.
On a makeshift stage in Belo Garden Park, he reiterated his specific calls for gun reform: universal background checks, red-flag laws that will allow police to confiscate guns from people deemed dangerous, banning high-capacity magazines and raising the age to purchase weapons from 18 to 21.
As he spoke, pro-gun supporters just outside the park heckled him with a bullhorn.
The rally, one of two gun control protests, was organized by the newly formed No Rifle Association. Organizers brought piles of free “NoRA” T-
shirts and posters reading “OUR LIVES OVER NRA MONEY.”
Actor Alyssa Milano, founder of the group, read from an “NRA Bill of Rights,” a list of demands such as “the right of our children to live free of gun violence in our nation,” and led the crowd in chants of “Vote Them Out!” — referring to politicians who take contributions from the NRA.
Milano and other activists had a brief confrontation with the gun rights supporters, until Dallas police officers escorted them from the park.
A gun rights group, the North Texas Patriots for Liberty, planned its demonstration at the same spot two hours later, members said, to rally to “protect our Second Amendment rights in the state of Texas.”
Ben Jackson, an NoRA co-founder, said his group is aimed at educating the public on the NRA’s influence in government and urges voters not to support politicians who accept NRA donations, be they Republican or Democrat.
“The amount of money the NRA spends on government really affects how we debate gun violence,” he said. “We’re not trying to take away anyone’s guns; we’re not trying to repeal the Second Amendment. We’re trying to help government function better.”
At another rally at City Hall, supporters of the student-led “Rally4Reform” gathered at City Hall to protest what they said was the “NRA leadership’s dangerous agenda.”
In remarks to the 80,000 participants at the convention, President Trump on Friday dismissed calls to ban guns as a way to reduce terrorism or gun deaths, noting the outbreak of incidents in which terrorists used trucks to ram pedestrians.
“So lets ban all trucks and vans. Maybe all cars,” he said.