When Wayne Lapierre gave his “press conference” a week after the massacre, my initial reaction was that it was bizarre. I immediately wrote a blog post & videoed a CNN iReport titled “NRA’s Wayne Lapierre Press Conference–Love Your Children? Then Arm The Schools (VIDEO Commentary)” stating as much. In the post I said that
“The cynic in me believes that Mr. Lapierre’s speech is intended to stoke a subliminal message in the psyche of the American citizenry, to further create armed regions, schools, hospitals, grocery stores, etc., and with that increase the gun business at large. In effect, use this tragedy to plant messages that if it pays off, will payoff big with a frightened population looking for protection at all financial or social cost.”
The day after thinking about how such a powerful well-oiled machine like the NRA would have such a bizarre “press conference”, made me go back to the drawing board. I wrote a blog post titled “Experts Say NRA Wayne Lapierre Press Conference A PR Disaster–MAYBE NOT” that asked,
“Was the national speech disguised as a press conference given by Wayne Lapierre on Friday really a mitigated PR disaster? Is it possible that after a week of silence and likely meetings with scores of media experts and pollsters that a well-funded Right Wing organization like the National Rifle Association would make such a PR blunder?”
The NRA knew that it would have a large audience, likely the largest it would have had to date. It knew America was scared. Most importantly it knows the success of repeating a message irrespective of its validity or veracity would metastasize like an uncontrollable cancer. In fact later I described the speech as follows:
“Make no mistake, that speech was well designed. It reminds everyone that there are legal violent games including one with the name “Kindergarten” in it. He reminds everyone of movies that make the killings at the elementary school seem like just another violent event in a violent world. He reminds everyone that what we deem precious and important is protected with guns including our President, our banks, our Congress, and much more. He then makes the callout. If we care about our children, should we not protect where they are most of their waking day?”
In other words, he laid the ground work of an active solution, a now solution, that wild, wild , west solution we have been led to believe would work. One would think with all the evidence out there that the armed is not generally protected from another armed killer, this thought process would be moot. The Texas DA that was killed in Kaufman, TX made it clear he was armed. He carried a gun with him at all times. Yet, it was not enough. What is shameful is that the media and politicians have failed to stress this point to educate a complacent citizenry. There is a volume of information and corroborative data to counter the NRA.
Public support has fallen for gun control by 10 points (from 57% to 47%). Those favoring strong restrictions have fallen from 52% to 43%. Many pundits are now accusing the president of not sufficiently engaging and moving quickly enough as if the president ever had the power to move Senators and congresspersons that have no care of public opinion. Judging from the fickleness of just over 50% of the population and their short memories, just maybe, Harry Reid is correct that on this issue, he should not go out on a limb. The NRA & Wayne Lapierre will likely win again.
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