We’re fighting terrorism, which comes under very specific geopolitical and military circumstances. This is not something that compares with the situation in the U.S.Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor • Disputing claims, made by the National Rifle Association last week, that they were an example for the U.S. to follow in adding police officers to schools. But they dispute this, first off, because those officers are dealing with terrorism, not school shootings. Secondly, the rate of school shootings and civilian gun ownership is actually very low in Israel. Third, the officers were added in a period where there were no recent attacks at schools. And finally, there have only been two school shootings in Israel in the past four decades. As it is, the guards Israel does have are lightly armed and have a support system in case something does happen.
But if Mr. LaPierre had any intention of softening his rhetoric regarding the recent Sandy Hook grade school shooting in Connecticut – particularly in light of normally pro-gun pundits and elected officials distancing themselves from his adamant stance – that was not apparent Sunday when he sat down for an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“If it’s crazy to call for putting police in and securing our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy,” LaPierre told NBC’s David Gregory. “I think the American people think it’s crazy not to do it. It’s the one thing that would keep people safe and the NRA is going try to do that.”
Alright man, will do. Side note, FWIW: Then-president Bill Clinton tried the same thing in 2000, a year after Columbine, and drew heavy criticism from Republicans for the effort. Clearly, it wasn’t successful. (ht climateadaptation for that last bit)
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 Kombat’ and ‘Splatterhouse.’National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre • Taking a swipe at a number of video games during his speech on Friday—where he also suggested that the solution to school shootings was having armed policemen at each school. Mind you, two of these games, Splatterhouse and Mortal Kombat, have each been around in various forms for two decades or longer, though both have had relatively recent entries. Anyway, can we call them the National Retro Association? It’s like they traveled back in time and pulled these lines out of the mouths of analysts in the wake of Columbine.
“The fact that this problem is complex can no longer be an excuse for doing nothing:” This morning, President Obama announced the formation of what’s essentially a gun control task force—a policy team tasked with crafting concrete proposals to reduce gun violence. The group will be headed by Vice President Biden, and its proposals will be due on the President’s desk “no later than January.” Obama emphatically rejected the notion that the team is a “commission;” he insisted that it will not “be studying the issue for six months and publishing a report that gets read and then pushed aside.” He also pledged to speak of the proposals, whatever they may be, in his State of the Union address next year.
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