Essentially the only real difference between what Archie Bunker said in a sitcom back in the 1970's and the NRA President's speech yesterday is the passage of time and the laugh track.
Also not very funny, but pretty damn ironic is that at the very same time that LaPierre was telling the television audience that "guns don't kill people," and "the only thing that stops a bad guy with gun is a good guy with a gun" there was a guy walking down the streets of Pennsylvania making a mockery of his argument:
According to local reports out of Blair County, at least four people were killed and five more were injured in a shooting spree near Altoona. The gunman is said to be among the dead, and at least two state troopers were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
WPXI's Courtney Brennan says she was told by emergency officials that the shooting suspect "was 'mobile' at one point and went up and down a rural road and shot victims."
You know another thing that made a mockery of what LaPierre said, were the actual facts of one of the worst shootings in America's history.
LaPierre claimed that if there had been armed officers inside the Sandy Hook Elementary school, that Adam Lanza would never have dared to enter the premises and open fire.
Well tell that to the two officers who were present when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold started massacring their fellow students in Columbine High school. The two gunmen knew the officers were there, yet with superior firepower they simply outgunned them, and continued on their rampage unabated.
I am almost tempted to call the NRA, as it is today, a joke. Not a funny one, but a joke nonetheless,
Especially considering the clowns that populate its board of directors.
Here are a few you might recognize:
John Bolton, George W. Bush's pugnacious Ambassador to the U.N.
Grover Norquist, anti-tax fetishist and the man currently holding the GOP hostage.
Chuck Norris, ex-martial arts superstar and current advocate for putting Bibles in school classrooms.
Oliver North, disgraced in the Iran-Contra affair during Ronald Reagan's second term.
Ted Nugent, old "poopy pants" himself.
Larry "wide stance" Craig
Wayne Anthony Ross, Sarah Palin's ex-attorney and the first person in Alaska history to be refused confirmation as Attorney General.
Rep. Don Young, Alaska's lone Congressman and an individual who once used the term "There will come a day when those who will bite will be killed too, and I'm very good at that!"
However like I said though these are clearly a bunch of clowns, they are NO laughing matter. For they have each done their part to cause great harm to our country and its' people.
And to find evidence of that harm you need to look no further than Newtown, Connecticut.
