LaPierre's comments at its national membership meeting in the lobbying group's hometown here follow a recent spate of murders across the globe, in which NRA members sprayed people with bullets for no apparent reason. LaPierre said it was the victims' fault for not wearing bullet-proof vests while out in public. But he also said he's growing tired of having to respond to the almost daily and indiscriminate murdering of non-bullet-proof-vest-wearing innocents.
NRA chief urges members to quit killing people. Photo: TYDN |
"It frankly shocks the conscience that people would go out in public and not wear bullet proof clothing knowing that everybody is packing heat because of the NRA's intense lobbying," LaPierre, wearing his Sunday best Kevlar vest, told the faithful here to intense applause. "But you must reduce the number of murders and save your bullets for when the Queen of England comes knocking on your door."
Second Amendment analysts told TheYellowDailyNews in exclusive interviews that LaPierre's comments face an uphill battle. "There's an estimated 4.5 million NRA members, and you know some of them are unable to just sleep with their weapons," Joel Jarnestein, a Stanford University constitutional scholar, told TheYellowDailyNews.
Jon Smith, a 29-year-old Georgia hog farmer who traveled here for the annual NRA meeting, told TheYellowDailyNews that he'll try to reduce the number of people he kills each year with his automatic rifle. "It's kinda boring just killing pigs with this thing," Smith said. "And my wives want me to stop bringing it to bed with us."
LaPierre's speech, however, underscored a growing discord in the NRA ranks. Many members suggested that LaPierre was kowtowing to the DC elite, according to an investigation by TheYellowDailyNews.
"If he's now saying we should stop the killing, then I'm having a hard time understanding the NRA's motto of 'guns don't kill people, people do,'" Mark Jones, an Idaho potato farmer, told TheYellowDailyNews here on the convention floor. "It just doesn't seem to make sense anymore. Who is Wayne LaPierre to tell me how I can use my assault rifles."