Scoffs at LaPierre’s ‘smear’
“Too many lives have already been lost because the NRA and people like Wayne LaPierre want to sell more guns,” he added.
LaPierre accused the kids calling him out of being pawns for liberals and “socialists” looking to strip the rights of gun-loving Americans.
“Socialism is a movement that loves a smear,” he said. “Socialism feeds off of manipulated victims.”
President Trump applauded the outspoken Second Amendment advocate and his NRA colleagues, calling them “patriots” in a tone-deaf tweet moments before the lobbyist took the stage.
“What many people don’t understand, or don’t want to understand, is that Wayne, Chris (Cox) and the folks who work so hard at the @NRA are Great People and Great American Patriots,” he wrote.
Trump later echoed LaPierre, saying he wants to arm teachers, but added that he’s open to limiting the age of those who can buy assault-style weapons and pushing for comprehensive background checks.
LaPierre called “gun-free zones” like schools easy targets for shooters, comparing them to jewelry stores and banks with armed security.
That’s a far cry from comments he made at the NRA’s 1999 convention.
“We believe in absolutely gun-free, zero-tolerance, totally safe schools. That means no guns in America’s schools. Period,” he said at the time.
He repeated his infamous comment, made after the Sandy Hook tragedy, that “to stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun.”
But he failed to mention that there was an armed guard at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last week. There was also an armed police officer present when two teens killed 15 people and wounded 23 others at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999.
LaPierre played to the crowd at CPAC by warning of a dystopian future that he said could be set in motion if gun control efforts succeed.
“For them it’s not a safety issue, it’s a political issue. They care more about control and more of it,” he said, referring to Democrats as “so-called new European socialists.”
“They hide behind labels like Democrat, left wing and progressive to make their socialist agenda more palatable,” he added.
Despite the fact that Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White house, LaPierre warned against the power of Democrats — blasting several potential 2020 contenders, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).
“They don’t care if their laws work or not,” LaPierre said. “They just want to get more laws to get more control over people. But the NRA, the NRA does care.”