NRA CEO Disagrees With Trump: ‘I Don’t Think You Should Have Firearms Where People Are Drinking’
Executive Vice President and CEO of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, told CBS anchor John Dickerson Sunday on “Face the Nation” that he opposes Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s claim that people should be allowed to carry concealed weapons in places where alcohol is being consumed.
The ongoing speculation surrounding the June 12 terrorist attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando is if shooter Omar Mateen was motivated by radical Islamic ideology, LGBT hatred or if he was simply insane and had easy access to an extremely powerful weapon.
Image source: CBS/”Face the Nation”
LaPierre noted that the assailants in these shootings the country has experienced in recent years have one major thing in common: They were all committed to inflicting mass casualties and destruction.
“John, I think we to look right in the face of who these people are that we’re facing,” he said. “They don’t care about the law. Laws didn’t stop them in Boston. Laws didn’t stop them in San Bernardino, where you had every type of gun control law you could have. And they didn’t stop them in Paris, where people can’t even own guns.”
LaPierre noted that the Paris attackers had fully automatic guns, ICDs and explosives.
“I mean, these bad guys that we’re facing,” he continued, “they don’t say, ‘Oh gosh, they passed a law.’ ‘Oh gosh, I don’t think I can do it.’”
The NRA leader went on to compare the response to tighten gun regulation in the wake of terrorist attacks to “trying to stop a freight train with a piece of Kleenex.”
LaPierre said the solution is for good citizens who own guns to take down terrorists at the moment they strike, “confront them directly” and “attack them.”
Dickerson noted, however, that “there was a good guy with a gun in the club” last weekend, but “he couldn’t stop him [Mateen].”
LaPierre said that “terrorist soft targets” like malls, churches and schools should have their own security plans, but added that, “we need to be able to protect ourselves.”
Dickerson then mentioned Trump’s comment about individuals carrying concealed weapons in places where people are drinking.
“I don’t think you should have firearms where people are drinking,” LaPierre said. “But I’ll tell you this: Everybody, every American needs to start having a security plan. We need to be able to protect ourselves because they’re coming, and they’re gonna go for vulnerable spots, and this country needs to realize that.”
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