NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre is leading unsmart Republican leaders around by their nose, and it’s time for them to get smart or lose future elections, Joe Scarborough declared Thursday morning during a discussion of LaPierre’s latest act: An apocalyptic jeremiad penned for the conservative site The Daily Caller called “Stand and Fight.”
In it, LaPierre lays out what he considers his case for why owning a gun isn’t about paranoia but survival, citing post-Sandy violence in the highly-unspecific locale of “south Brooklyn.”
“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 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.
Drew Katchen