IN 2000, CLINTON BACKED ARMED GUARDS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. SO WHY IS THE NRA’S LaPIERRE CRAZY?
By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Ever since the NRA belatedly (and inadvisably, as my friend Mike Turner correctly told The Record) joined the post-Newtown gun control debate on Friday, the media has been unanimous in judging NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre as a MAD man.
Rahmbot blasted his suggestion that we put more armed guards in schools as “outrageous and unsettling.” The press corps in attendance at LaPierre’s presser couldn’t even mask its disdain for America’s leading 2nd Amendment organization. Over in the U.K., newspapers treated LaPierre’s speech as nothing short of dangerously insane (though this Yankee can appreciate the irony of snooty British papers demanding an end to the Colonies’ 2nd Amendment rights).
Even Governor Christie expressed opposition to the NRA’s position but avoided dropping the crazy card. I strongly disagree with the Guv on this one, but at least he manned up and said something; other Republicans have been running for the hills and avoiding interviews like the plague.
It’s hard to see why on substance alone, Save Jerseyans. President Bill Clinton, widely regarded as America’s most popular politician international, used the 1st Anniversary of the 1999 Columbine massacre to push for a larger armed presence in America’s schools (h/t LA Times)…
Clinton also unveiled the $60-million fifth round of funding for “COPS in School,” a Justice Department program that helps pay the costs of placing police officers in schools to help make them safer for students and teachers. The money will be used to provide 452 officers in schools in more than 220 communities.
“Already, it has placed 2,200 officers in more than 1,000 communities across our nation, where they are heightening school safety as well as coaching sports and acting as mentors and mediators for kids in need,” Clinton said.
But substance be damned, right? The political dimension of this controversy is inescapable. With the proper context supplied above, Save Jerseyans, the ongoing gun control debate really seems no different than when the Dems demagogued poor Paul Ryan for having the brass to broach the subject of entitlement reform or, more recently, when Speaker Boehner put forth the only workable fiscal cliff solution given the current partisan composition of the political branches of federal government. For all the media/liberal establishment talk of Republicans behaving unreasonably, it seems as if the GOP coalition can’t offer a single common sense proposal (even one which an uber-popular Democrat championed) without being blasted by a media/political establishment that’s already made up its mind: all conservatives are nutty and deserve ridicule.
So is LaPierre really crazy? If “yes,” then Clinton is, too.
Or does MSM/liberal criticism of LaPierre have nothing to do with substance after all? Or protecting our kids? Or fixing the cultural/mental health problems afflicting our schools? Perhaps their immature barbs and scornful criticism is designed, first and foremost, to advance an ideology?
It’s time to come to terms with this fact if you haven’t already. It’s the real reason why this country can’t conduct a real, substantive, civil debate on ANYTHING anywhere. Let’s cut through the B.S… formerly popular ideas are only “crazy” when it’s a conservative championing them!
