Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
When one of your main talking points is that we should do a better job of keeping mentally ill people from gaining access to weapons (the false implication being that the mentally ill are dangerous and responsible for crime; the mentally ill are far more frequently the victim of crimes), then the NRA probably should not have a spokesman who exhibits all the signs of paranoid delusions (a psychological disorder) ranting about his irrational fears of a coming "zombie apocalypse."
Wayne LaPierre is the poster boy for exactly who should not be allowed to own a weapon under the NRA's own standard of prohibiting the mentally ill from owning a weapon.
NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, the chief lobbyist for the merchants of death on Capitol Hill, penned an apocalyptic jeremiad for Tucker Carlson's far-right web site The Daily Caller entitled “Stand and Fight.”
In his op-ed, LaPierre lays out what he considers his case for why owning a weapon isn’t about paranoia — immediately after outlining his paranoid delusions of a coming "zombie apocalypse":
“After Hurricane Sandy, we saw the hellish world that the
gun prohibitionists see as their utopia. Looters ran wild in south
Brooklyn. There was no food, water or electricity. And if you wanted to
walk several miles to get supplies, you better get back before dark, or
you might not get home at all…Meanwhile, President Obama is leading this
country to financial ruin, borrowing over a trillion dollars a year for
phony “stimulus” spending and other payoffs for his political cronies.
Nobody knows if or when the fiscal collapse will come, but if the
country is broke, there likely won’t be enough money to pay for police
protection. And the American people know it. Hurricanes. Tornadoes.
Riots. Terrorists. Gangs. Lone criminals. These are perils we are sure
to face—not just maybe. It’s not paranoia to buy a gun. It’s survival.
It’s responsible behavior, and it’s time we encourage law-abiding
Americans to do just that.”
LaPierre gets his inspiration from Ghost Busters (1984):
Dr. Peter Venkman:
This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor:
What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr Ray Stantz:
What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman:
Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz:
Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler:
Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…
Winston Zeddemore:
The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman:
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!
Joe Scarborough, the conservative host of MSNBC's Morning Joe, correctly noted the coded racism in LaPierre's op-ed: "Looters ran wild in south
Brooklyn." "Looters" is synomous with "scary black people" for the scared old white people of FAUX Nation. Scarborough: Wayne LaPierre op-ed is ‘so laced with racial overtones’:
LaPierre doesn’t pinpoint where in south Brooklyn—Gravesend, the
Ukranian enclave of Brighton Beach, maybe the bucolic stretch of Fort
Tilden—the looting took place. But perhaps LaPierre was referring to Sheepshead Bay,
one of the only neighborhoods to report looting in the wake of
Hurricane Sandy. However, even in that case, residents of the
neighborhood said they didn’t use firearms to defend themselves.
“Looters ran wild in South Brooklyn…really? What’s he suggesting there?,” Scarborough asked Thursday morning.
The Morning Joe host took umbrage with the bulk of
LaPierre’s missive and, in particular, his assertion that “Latin
American drug gangs have invaded every city of significant size in the
United States.”
Scarborough continued:
I don’t know where to start…yeah, it’s responsible to own
a gun; it’s responsible to protect your family; it’s responsible to
have a handgun in your house; it’s responsible to have a shotgun; it’s
responsible to have a hunting rifle, but Wayne LaPierre is suggesting if
you are against Americans being able to own assault weapons with
30-round, high-capacity magazines…and he said, Hispanic drug gangs are
coming to America. And those terrible people in Brooklyn. Don’t go out
after dark. I mean, this is so laced with racial overtones…the
Republican Party, if they were smart, their leaders today would condemn
it, but they’re not smart; they’re scared, and if they keep running
scared they’re going to lose more votes, they’re going to get hammered
in future elections if they allow this clown to continue to lead them
around by their nose. They’re shameful; they need to be leaders.
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LaPierre is appealing to the conspiracy theory far-right extremist fringe who listen to the truly insane hate radio talker Alex Jones, who is peddling a conspiracy theory that the "guvmint" is buying up all the ammo for a coming "zombie apocalypse." Huge gov't ammo buy legit, it tells conspiracy theorists:
Published federal notices about the ammo buy have agitated conspiracy
theorists since the fall. That's when conservative radio host Alex
Jones spoke of an "arms race against the American people" and said the
government was "gearing up for total collapse; they're gearing up for
huge wars."
The government's explanation is much less sinister.
Federal
solicitations to buy the ammo are known as "strategic sourcing
contracts," which help the government get a low price for a big
purchase, said Peggy Dixon, spokeswoman for the Federal Law Enforcement
Training Center in Glynco, Ga. The training center and others like it
run by the Homeland Security Department use as many as 15 million rounds
every year, mostly on shooting ranges and in training exercises.
Dixon
said one of the contracts would allow Homeland Security to buy up to
750 million rounds of ammunition over the next five years for its
training facilities. The rounds are used for basic and advanced
law-enforcement training for federal law-enforcement agencies under the
department's umbrella. The facilities also offer firearms training to
tens of thousands of federal law-enforcement officers. More than 90
federal agencies and 70,000 agents and officers used the department's
training center last year.
The rest of the 1.6 billion rounds of
ammunition would be purchased by Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
the federal government's second-largest criminal investigative agency.
"Alex Jones, the talk-show host, did not immediately respond to requests for comment." He is probably hiding in his bunker, wearing his tinfoil hat to prevent the "guvmint" from sending secret mind-control messages to his fevered brain, while hunkerin' down waiting for the "guvmint" to come take his guns, or the "zombie apocalypse." These people are insane. Under the NRA's own standard, they should not be allowed to own weapons.