Summary - During the Conservative Political Action Conference this week, NRA head Wayne LaPierre stated that "opportunists" were using the recent tragedy that happened in Florida as a way to push their agenda of expanding gun control and abolishing U.S. gun rights. Here is another statement which was said by the NRA head: "They hate the NRA. They hate the second amendment. They hate individual freedom". It is safe to assume that the word "they" refers to those with leftist views on gun control who voiced their opinion on a solution to the problem of school shootings. The words spoken by the NRA head are not going to sit well with some, believing that the talk of gun control after a shooting is not exploitation of the situation.
Questions -
Do you agree with any of what Wayne LaPierre said?
Do you believe statements like these are what contribute to the growing polarization of American people today?
Link -
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43158994
7 comments:
No, I do not agree with what Wayne said because he is making it seem like the leftists are choosing to "abolish" gun rights. The point of making stricter gun laws to keep everyone safe, and to feel safe in places we shouldn't need to necessarily have to worry about our safety. It is hard to see why the rightists choose gun rights over gun laws when this whole scenario is putting students around the country in danger from things they are not able to control. Having stricter gun laws does not mean take guns from the people who already own guns, it means to make the laws stricter so people who want guns, have to jump through an extra hoop to guarantee safety for others around them.
I agree with Sam, many people often confuse that stricter gun laws will mean that we will get rid of all guns, which isn't the issue and it is unrealistic to actually make that happen. What we can do is make stricter gun laws to keep students safe. It is sad that now a days people would rather protect to keep the 2nd amendment the same, instead of protecting children. I just think it seems ridiculous that a man who is 19 is able to buy military weapons, yet is not even able to buy alcohol at a store. I don't think it is unfair that people would have to go through better background checks to be able to obtain a gun.
Building on the comments above, LaPierre's statement is false. I feel like the NRA is blind to the fact that there are flaws in background checks. Additionally, like Sam said, some are not trying to abolish guns. I think that what people are missing is why citizens need to own assault rifles when you can protect yourself with a hand gun. Assault rifles are meant to stay in the military not around schools and the NRA is missing that point.
I agree one of the sentiments expressed by LaPierre which is that people on the more liberal end of the American political spectrum “hate the NRA.” The high schoolers stories and voices have been amplified by the media and for good reason because they are among those directly impacted by guns in society. However, I do not believe that this issue should solely rest on the shoulders of NRA members/ leadership because it is in part the fault of our federal government for not keeping us safe. I firmly believe that the emotions we are seeing around this national tragedy have inspired some to make pushes for policy in Washington but others, contrary to what Samantha believes, to actually request for assault rifles to be banned, or 'taken away' from their owners. If you believe in the second option, then go ahead and try to take assault weapons away from the owners. Let's see how much resistance you encounter.
Dana Loesch, a spokesperson for the NRA sums up the issue when she says "The government can't keep you safe and some people want us to give up our firearms and rely solely upon the protection of the same government that has already failed numerous times in keeping us safe. And then they also call Trump a tyrant but they say they want the president to confiscate our firearms? Try to figure that one out."
I agree with LaPierre that the pro gun control advocates are exploiting the Florida shooting in order to push their agenda for more gun control. This is obvious and indisputable, of course they are taking advantage of this to push for more gun control. They used this incident to say that hey, mass shootings are a major problem in the US, look at what happened in Florida, something needs to be done about this, and that something is more gun control. There are exploiting the emotional response to this shooting to appeal to people's emotions in order to convince them that gun control is the only moral answer and anybody who disagrees with this is a bad human being and does not care about the deaths of the students in Florida, Sandy Hook, and all other mass school shootings. The fact is that compared to the number of people killed in the streets and other gun related homicides, the number of people being killed in school shootings and other mass shootings is almost negligible. Over 10,000 people are killed every year by gun related homicides, but when that happens, nobody says anything, but then all of a sudden, 17 people are killed in a school shooting and everybody picks up their signs and take to the streets to protest. There are far more than 17 people killed every day due to gun related homicides, but nobody says anything about that, it's only when the deaths come from a school shooting that people actually start to pay attention to gun violence. This is because school shootings are far more emotionally tragic than people being killed on the streets every day, and because of this increased emotional response people start paying more attention to this issue. If people actually looked at the numbers and wanted to save the most number of lives, they would focus on the over 10,000 gun murders every year rather than the 17 students killed in one shooting.
I don't think gun control advocates are exploiting the Florida tragedy at all to push for gun control. As far as what John said about "exploiting the emotional response to this shooting to appeal to people's emotions ," I don't think there's any emotional exploitation happening at all. I see it as this: gun control advocates (at a minimum) argue that assault rifles should be banned. But a man got his hands on an assault rifle and killed 17 high schoolers with it. Why wouldn't they be outraged? And why can't they voice this outrage in order to make change happen? There is no doubt that 17 people would not have been killed if the perpetrator had a knife instead of an AR-15. Under no circumstances should a normal person need an AR-15, and gun control advocates are voicing their frustration about the ease at which one can still acquire one of these weapons. NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch recently said that "many in legacy media love mass shootings," and, while some claim that her comments were taken a little out of context, I think that accusing people of "exploiting" such a tragedy is unfair and simply not true.
I don't think gun control advocates are exploiting the Florida tragedy at all to push for gun control. As far as what John said about "exploiting the emotional response to this shooting to appeal to people's emotions ," I don't think there's any emotional exploitation happening at all. I see it as this: gun control advocates (at a minimum) argue that assault rifles should be banned. But a man got his hands on an assault rifle and killed 17 high schoolers with it. Why wouldn't they be outraged? And why can't they voice this outrage in order to make change happen? There is no doubt that 17 people would not have been killed if the perpetrator had a knife instead of an AR-15. Under no circumstances should a normal person need an AR-15, and gun control advocates are voicing their frustration about the ease at which one can still acquire one of these weapons. NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch recently said that "many in legacy media love mass shootings," and, while some claim that her comments were taken a little out of context, I think that accusing people of "exploiting" such a tragedy is unfair and simply not true.
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