I listened to Wayne Lapierre's statement today. The transcript is linked below.
His basic point was that no amount of legislation will suffice to disarm Americans. We are not the UK. Nor are we Canada. The federal structure of the Republic and the rejection by many Americans of further federal gun control legislation will ensure that the 145 million gun owners in the US will not be disarmed.
Having said that he continued that "monsters walk among us." Whether these monsters are created by chemical poisoning, endemic violence in the media, the publicity given to people like the Newtown killer or whatever, he could not say, although he seemed sure that all those things contributed to the phenomenon.
Lapierre pointed to the fact that just about everything in the US that is of any value is protected by armed guards. He listed the president, the congress, banks, big buildings, airports and our homes as among thing so protected. He asked a rhetorical question. If you awake in the middle of the night to the sound of glass breaking and you place a 911 call, do you want the people who respond to be armed or unarmed?
The NRA proposes that every schools in the US be protected by armed police, either regular police or retired policemen, soldiers and other qualified, trained volunteers. Lapierre asked the question of whether it would not have been better for Lanza to be faced by an armed policeman rather than the noble teachers who gave their lives in unarmed defense of their children.
To support their concept NRA has hired Asa Hutchinson a former deputy secretary of homeland defense to head a two part effort to harden school security:
- A design/build project to find and install the latest and best passive building defenses for schools. NRA offers to pay for much of that program.
- NRA calls on the congress to vote the money for school police guards. NRA offers to train the guards gratis.
Neither Lapierre nor I expect a positive response from the Obama Administration nor the anti-gun fanatics, but NRA will win this fight at the state and school district levels in much of the country.
At the same time the president should consider what the scale of his defeat may well be in congress over the kind of law that he is clearly contemplating. pl
