Liberal pundits who spent the last week since the Newtown massacre treating the National Rifle Association as a pinata often underestimate the group’s popularity and hold on the loyalty of a large and influential membership. But the NRA’s first public statement since the school shooting shows its leadership is as tone deaf to the mood of the country as its critics are to the thinking of gun-rights supporters.
After a week of radio silence from the powerful lobby, yesterday’s press conference by Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice president, might have been the start of a campaign to win back the hearts of a nation that has grown cold to the traditional anti-gun-law arguments. Instead, LaPierre delivered a strident rant that made even his generally sensible idea about ramping up security at schools sound idiotic.
The point isn’t that the NRA’s critics are completely right. They aren’t. More gun laws aren’t a magic formula to prevent shootings by madmen. In a different context, most Americans might agree with LaPierre that the best defense against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with one.
3 CUT DOWN IN PENNSYLVANIA RAMPAGE
Yet by refusing to contemplate even small changes in existing laws, the NRA lost its chance to get back into the debate on terms other than as the villain in a morality play about the murder of innocents.
In a way, that is to be expected since the NRA’s attitude toward any form of gun control is similar to the response of pro-abortion groups to parental-consent laws or prohibition of procedures that smack of infanticide. Both see any infringement of an absolute right as the thin edge of the wedge toward abolition.
But LaPierre needs to know that there are times to give your usual stump speech, and times when it’s smarter to keep your mouth shut.
Yesterday showed that maybe another week or month of silence from the NRA might have been better than an attempt to bludgeon the nation into forgetting what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary.
The NRA didn’t have to concede its core beliefs in order to avoid looking just like the caricature of the heartless gun lobby that its foes talk about. LaPierre could have devoted more time to memorializing the victims, or simply said it’s not the time to rehearse old arguments.
Yet he couldn’t resist letting loose with a familiar litany about how more guns, rather than fewer, make the country safer. He blamed the creators of gun-free zones for the murders. And, though he opposes registering guns, he wants the mentally ill listed on a national register.
In another bizarre twist, he spoke as if the killings were the fault of old video games and the entertainment industry — showing he’s ready to throw the First Amendment under the bus to preserve the Second.
He lectured rather than listened and didn’t even take questions. The result was a public-relations disaster.
The NRA has 4 million members who vote; it is its use of the democratic system, not a sinister conspiracy, that is the source of its strength. But its leadership must act as if they care what the rest of the nation is thinking.
After Newtown, it was time for the NRA to take it down a notch. It may pay a heavy price for this misjudgment.
Jonathan S. Tobin is senior online editor of Commentary magazine.