Ted Nugent: Parkland students ‘have no soul’

UNITED STATES: The discourse surrounding the students who survived a mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school in February and their activism on gun policy has turned radioactive in recent weeks.

On social media, gun-control critics have pilloried student leaders Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg, posting doctored images of Gonzalez shredding the Constitution and memes showing Hogg in a Nazi uniform.

The teen-led movement has reignited the nation’s gun debate, drawing stark partisan lines, as well as cries of manipulation from the right, who say Democrats have used the students as both shield and sword to advance tighter restrictions on firearms.

Enter the Motor City Madman, musician Ted Nugent, perhaps the National Rifle Association’s most outspoken board member.

In a Saturday interview mostly focused on Gonzalez’s and Hogg’s criticism of the NRA, Nugent and radio host Joe ‘‘Pags’’ Pagliarulo discussed how the students at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have navigated media appearances and their belief that the teenagers have been manipulated by left-wing ideologues.

‘‘These poor children, I’m afraid to say, but the evidence is irrefutable. They have no soul,’’ Nugent told Pagliarulo on the radio show on WAOI in San Antonio, which is syndicated nationwide.

Nugent noted that no known NRA members have been involved in mass shootings, and he decried Camerota for not challenging Gonzalez’s specious link to mass shootings and the NRA.

‘‘The lies from these poor, mushy-brained children who have been fed lies and parrot lies,’’ Nugent said. ‘‘I really feel sorry for them. It’s not only ignorant, dangerous and stupid – it’s soulless.’’ - Washington Post