If you were able to watch, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre came out in total attack in the much awaited press conference. He did not even spare the President of the United States.
He said "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."
I had never seen such crazy statements in my 34 years living in the United States.
He said "Why do you protect the President with an armed secret service, but you do not protect our children?"
I loved his performance, though. The best strategy is to attack at full force. Not even an inch of compromise. And, the guy also assaulted the entire U.S. media by claiming they were paid by advertisers who promoted violence. He was referring to violent online games and showed one primitive game (I suspect its origin) on a TV screen in which the game player was killing students in a classroom.
I had to live and see this nonsense. President Obama is screwed. One organization with just 4 million members can stand before the President.
He said "We demand armed officers in every school in the U.S. before the Congress convenes in January."
OK, he blinked. He is afraid of the passage of a gun law after the holidays.
He offered NRA membership to train officers at schools. Man, we're back to Western movies.
He also challenged President Obama's task force on gun control by introducing NRA's own commission to handle criminals at schools. WOW!
He said "We need armed good guys now."
But, the beautiful moments were those two demonstrators who blocked the speaker's view by showing signs indicating NRA was responsible for killing children and people. One of the demonstrators was none other than the head of Code Pink, Medea Benjamin. She is a brave woman.
We never left the Western movies, the gun slinger mentality has been part of this culture from the beginning and will be so for foreseeable future. This mentality is also evident by the number of wars this nation has been involved in and with so much money and profit, it is only to grow and get worse.
Mehrdad
I made a sarctic comment.
Western movies do not exist any more. We (who are we, anyway?) did leave it.
I believe the phenomenum of so-called "West" in the United States history was not about waging wars in other countries or internally. In the old West, carrying a gun was a way of life (although even in the old West not all people carried a gun), but it was not even prevalent in metropolitan cities in the East. Anyway, people then carried guns because of safety, which, by the way, is the excuse NRA cites in 2013!. As time went, civility took over. Safety was provided by the law, and the idea of carrying guns became obsolete.
The irony is that the NRA as a philosophy (not organization) still limagines we live in the late 1800 -- a relaity that does not exist today. That is so obvious today among the masses. Even a sizable percentage of NRA members accept that.