Protesters Hijack Presser as NRA Calls for Armed Cops at Every School

Heckling protesters twice interrupted this morning’s press conference of the National Rifle Association, stealing the thunder from NRA Executive VP Wayne LaPierre’s call for armed guards at every American school.

“The NRA is killing our children!” shouted the first protester, after holding up a banner for several seconds, blocking PaPierre’s podium and making it appear, from one angle, as if LaPierre was holding up the sign.

A few minutes later another voice rang out: “The NRA has blood on his hands! Ban assault weapons now!”

Both protesters were removed, and LaPierre carried on without acknowledging the interruption.

LaPierre called on Congress to fund a program to put armed guards at every school — a “National School Shield.” LaPierre said the NRA has among its members thousands of qualified instructors to help train new school officers, and he introduced former Congressman Asa Hutchinson to help lead the Shield program.

Earlier in his lengthy speech, he said gun-free school zones are sitting ducks for mass killers:

Politicians pass laws for gun free school zones, they issue press releases bragging about them. They post signs advertising them. And, in doing so, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk. How have our nation’s priorities gotten so far out of order. Think about it. We care about our money, so we protect our banks with armed guards. American airports, office buildings, power plants, court houses, even sports stadiums are all protected by armed security.

He blamed video games and movies for fostering a culture of violence:

And here’s another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal. There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games with names like “Bullet Storm,” “Grand Theft Auto,” “Mortal Combat,” and “Splatterhouse.”

And here’s one, it’s called “Kindergarten Killers.” It’s been online for 10 years. How come my research staff can find it, and all of yours couldn’t? Or didn’t want anyone to know you had found it? Add another hurricane, add another natural disaster. I mean we have blood-soaked films out there, like “American Psycho,” “Natural Born Killers.” They’re aired like propaganda loops on Splatterdays and every single day.

And, repeatedly, he spoke of the media as the enemy:

A child growing up in America today witnesses 16,000 murders, and 200,000 acts of violence by the time he or she reaches the ripe old age of 18. And, throughout it all, too many in the national media, their corporate owners, and their stockholders act as silent enablers, if not complicit co-conspirators.

The media calls semi-automatic fire arms, machine guns. They claim these civilian semi-automatic fire arms are used by the military. They tell us that the .223 is one of the most powerful rifle calibers, when all of these claims are factually untrue, they don’t know what they’re talking about. Worse, they perpetuate the dangerous notion that one more gun ban or one more law imposed on peaceable, lawful people will protect us where 20,000 other laws have failed.

Now, I can imagine the headlines, the shocking headlines you’ll print tomorrow. “More guns,” you’ll claim, “are the NRA’s answer to everything.” Your implication will be that guns are evil and have no place in society, much less in our schools.