NRA Leader Wayne LaPierre’s Much-Criticized Sandy Hook Speech Was Actually Quite Effective
Granted, if you believe that what LaPierre was trying to do today was to sincerely join in a national conversation over school shootings, or offer a coherent set of preventative policy options, or even just demonstrate some baseline sensitivity for the lives that were lost, it is easy to see why you’d deem LaPierre’s press conference to be an ineffective, tone-deaf failure. But what you should remember that the National Rifle Association does not exist to offer sensible public policy or participate in conversations or pretend to be sensitive about tragedies. The National Rifle Association exists to assist the manufacturers of guns and gun-related accoutrements in selling guns and gun-related accoutrements to people. That is their job, summed up, in its entirety.
The NRA are lobbyists who represent a bunch of gun retailers, and this is what lobbyists do — they help their clients sell their products. And every action that LaPierre took today can and should be viewed through that prism.