Fox News Calls NRA Claim ‘Ridiculous’
Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace called a controversial NRA claim "ridiculous."
Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace called a controversial NRA claim “ridiculous.”
Fox News host Chris Wallace called out National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre on Sunday for arguing that President Obama’s children live under the same threats to their security as all other school children.
“That’s ridiculous and you know it, sir,” Wallace said to LaPierre.
Wallace asked his guest on “Fox News Sunday” if he regretted airing a controversial TV ad in which the NRA went after President Obama for providing armed security to his daughters but not supporting their proposal to put armed guards in all schools.
“They also face a threat that most children do not face,” Wallace said of Obama’s daughters.
“Tell that to the people in Newtown,” LaPierre responded.
“You really think that the president’s children are the same kind of target as every other school child in America?” Wallace said. “That’s ridiculous and you know it, sir.”
While I defended the ad in question from the charge that it was tasteless, I noted that “the ad’s argument is silly. The president and his family have unique security requirements.” For LaPierre to not acknowledge that obvious point in indeed ridiculous. Moreover, engaging is such transparent hackery calls into question the power of the NRA’s overall argument; a professional lobbying group is naturally going to use its strongest points to build its case.
The NRA is really stuck on this one.
On the one hand, they should really be pushing for some sort of national training and licensing requirement (with themselves as the preferred trainer, for a reasonable fee, of course).
On the other hand, if the do that, their membership will go absolutely apeshit and the NRA would probably cease to exist.
So they’re sticking with throwing red meat to the membership, and it seems to be working, if their numbers are any indication. For that reason, I don’t think we’ll see LaPierre walking back on this anytime soon.
LaPierre is absolutely, clinically, deranged. Someone needs to take the process backwards a step and ask him if he even thinks there’s a problem that needs to be addressed in any way – I bet he’ll say “no”. Then we can safely discard any opinion he and the NRA have on gun control at all.
I don’t think their base membership will go away. What LaPierre’s positions mean is that business interests are driving the bus. So it’s the funding that may diminish… And Wayne’s salary.
@Mikey:
We should have mandatory firearm familiarization training for all students starting as early as possible to “gun proof” them and make them less likely to mishandle a found firearm. This should be paid for with government funds since it is a serious safety issue and enables all citizens to enjoy their Second Amendment rights safely regardless of financial condition. We can put off teaching first graders about gay or anal sex and divert those funds to “gun proofing”.
Yes, the President’s kids face more imminent threats than your average kid, except perhaps some who life in high crime areas. So they get heavily armed guards who carry not only semi-automatic pistols but also fully automatic assault pistols and rifles.
Yet, Obama and other politicians have claimed that it is damaging to children to have armed personnel around them. So, why would it damage your average kid to have someone in their vicinity armed and not damage the President’s children live in close contact to heavily armed personnel 24/7/365?
Clavin—I’ll let you off the hook. I did err in saying the school had armed guards on the school staff. If I had considered it more deeply, I would have realized that the Secret Service would not permit armed non-governmental personnel but rather would maintain the school as a secure facility 24/7/365 using their own armed personnel for as long as the President’s children attended. It only makes sense cost wise since it takes a lot more time and effort to clear a facility than to maintain it as a secure facility.
@JKB:
Dude, Sidwell Friends is a Quaker school. I’d be surprised if the school didn’t think long and hard about having armed bodyguards at the school, let alone hiring armed guards themselves.
@JKB:
You are an idiot. You are so reliably dense I honestly can’t tell if this is meant to be sarcasm or a serious statement.
@JKB:
You might be able to get the left to agree to this, but only if you somehow teach the first graders both homosexuality AND firearm safety at the same time.
As for the story, well, we all know the NRA’s argument was both unfounded and, worse, very petty. As Mikey said, it really does illustrate that the driving force behind the NRA’s policies are NOT its rank-and-file gun owners but the gun manufacturers. As much as I believe in the individual citizen’s right to bear arms, I’m not an NRA member, largely because of this. The problem is that, instead of focusing on efforts by overreaching government efforts to pass draconian anti-gun laws (like much of Cuomo’s recent program) they have begun this strange campaign to try to get a gun in EVERYONE’S hands. That doesn’t serve to protect our rights, nor is it a safe and sensible goal. It does sell lots of guns though.
What I can’t figure out is why there’s hardly any conservatives besides Joyner who can actually argue in a convincing matter. Certainly none of the commenters can – who’s going to read past the above line?
Let us be clear that the headline to this story is glaringly inaccurate:
Fox News did not call him out, Chris Wallace did.
To insinuate that Fox News would ever call out anyone in the NRA for anything, but especially for bashing the president or his family is ridiculous !!! Mr. Ayles, Rupert Murdoch, and the main pundits of Fox News have made it very clear that their mission since President Obama’s election in 2004 has been to discredit the man in any way possible by any means available, including using his wife and children to push forward their agenda.
I would guess that Mr. Wallace probably got a severe scolding from his Fox News leadership for his remarks and may be on to publicly apologize for his “disrespectful ” remarks to the spokesman of the NRA.
Give Chris Wallace the credit he deserves for going rogue on their ass, but don’t believe or insinuate for a minute Fox Network was happy with or agreed with his remarks!!
@legion:
This is why when push comes to shove, the NRA will fight any regulation that will actually serve to keep guns out of the hands of “absolutely, clinically, deranged” people. Mark my words.
@Franklin: Finding people who can make a convincing conservative case is a larger problem than just these comment threads. WAPO has to settle for George Will, Chuckles Krauthammer, and Ruth Marcus. The NYT for Ross Douthat, after Bill Kristol proved too lazy to get basic facts right. Other people who can make a coherent conservative case, like David Frum or Bruce Bartlett, have been thrown under the conservative bus and speak only for themselves. It’s a problem everywhere. The conservative movement has gone so far away from any rational conservatism that reality based writers can’t support it. Except James, and there are days I doubt his complete commitment to conservatism.
The NRA enjoys high positive ratings in polls. They probably know from past cycles that hard-line (even crazy) positions do not impact their support much.
And so they have no reason to change.
(I’d really like this time to be different, for the wider population to notice how far LaPierre has diverged from popular, even gun owner, opinion – but I expect not.)
@Argon:
Didn’t matter what the school thought about. No way the President’s kids or any of the other children of the “elite” attend that school without armed guards. And with presidential security, not without 24/7 armed control of the entire school by the Secret Service.
@JKB:
Ah, except for the fact the the school could have simply not accepted the Obamas’ application in the first place. I’m not sure, but I don’t think these are the first Presidential kids to go to Sidwell, so I’ll bet they’ve had ample time to think about it… if they decided they couldn’t abide gun-carrying guards on their premises, the President has no authority to force them to accept his kids.
Sidwell Friends does not employ armed guards *period*. Quakers are pacifists. Their security personnel do not carry arms regardless of whether children protected by the Secret Service are enrolled or not.
@JKB:
When conservatives put their heads up their collective asses on the issue of whether the president’s children should have armed security coverage – is that considered a form of anal sex?