WASHINGTON — Leaders of the National Rifle Association said Sunday that they would fight any new gun restrictions introduced in Congress, and they made clear that they were not interested in working with President Barack Obama to help develop a broad response to the Connecticut school massacre.
During an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Wayne LaPierre, the vice president of the powerful gun lobby, was openly dismissive of a task force established by Obama and led by Vice President Joe Biden that is examining ways to reduce gun violence.
“If it’s a panel that’s just going to be made up of a bunch of people that, for the last 20 years, have been trying to destroy the Second Amendment, I’m not interested in sitting on that panel,” LaPierre said, adding that the “NRA is not going to let people lose the Second Amendment in this country, which is supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people.”
At a widely watched news briefing on Friday, LaPierre said the NRA’s solution to prevent mass shootings like those that have occurred in the past few years - several of them on school campuses - was to put armed guards in schools nationwide.
Rep. Chris Murphy, DConn., called it “the most revolting, tone-deaf statement I’ve ever seen.”
During Friday’s briefing, LaPierre and the gun group’s president, David Keene, did not directly address plans proposed in the last week that would ban assault rifles or otherwise restrict the availability of firearms.
But during a round of appearances on the Sunday talk shows by LaPierre, Keene and Asa Hutchinson, a former Republican congressman from Arkansas who will lead the gun group’s response to the shooting in Newtown, Conn., they made it clear that the NRA opposed all of the gun restrictions now under discussion and did not believe they should be part of the discussion.
On the question of whether a limit on high-capacity ammunition magazines would reduce the likelihood of mass shootings like the one in Connecticut, LaPierre said in a testy exchange with Meet the Press host David Gregory that “I don’t think it will.”
“I keep saying it, and you just won’t accept it - it’s not going to work. It hasn’t worked,” LaPierre said.
As for the idea of reinstating a ban on so-called assault rifles, which was in place from 1994 to 2004, he said, “I think that is a phony piece of legislation, and I do not believe it will pass for this reason: It’s all built on lies that have been found out.”
Some lawmakers were incredulous, yet acknowledged that the political and fundraising might of the NRA would make Obama’s push for gun restrictions a struggle.
“I have found the statements by the NRA over the last couple of days to be really disheartening, because the statements seem to not reflect any understanding about the slaughter of children” in Newtown, said Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., said LaPierre was “so extreme and so tone deaf ” that he was making it easier to pass gun legislation.
“Look, he blames everything but guns: movies, the media, President Obama, gunfree school zones, you name it. And the video games, he blames them,” Schumer said.
While the NRA has been criticized sharply by gun-control advocates since it broke its silence about the Connecticut shooting on Friday, it did receive some support from Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C.
“People where I live, I’ve been Christmas shopping all weekend, have come up to me: ‘Please don’t let the government take my guns away,’” Graham said. “And I’m going to stand against another assault ban because it didn’t work before, and it won’t work in the future.” Information for this article was contributed by Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times, and by Kevin Freking and Adam Goldman of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 12/24/2012