Wayne LaPierre: The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun - is a good guy with a gun. I back a movement to put Armed Police Officers in Every School in this Nation.
Apparently LaPierre doesn't realize that in some of our cities, like here in LA, we already have Armed Police in our Schools, and that sometimes that doesn't work out so well when they
FAKE A SCHOOL SHOOTING after he accidentally shot himself.
A Los Angeles school police officer who said he was shot by an attacker last week, prompting a manhunt that shut down a large swath of Woodland Hills, has been arrested on suspicion of concocting the story, authorities said Thursday night.
Oh, by the way, there were
Armed Guards at Columbine - they were just outgunned. Cops carry hand guns, these guys are showing with
AR15's! If we had armed cops in every school, the bad guys will just show up with a .50 Cal like the one David Koresh used to
disable a tank.
Let me make this simple: All he really said was "On With The BodyCount!"
Almost two decades ago a claim similar to LaPierre's was made. That the big problem of Gun Deaths in America isn't because of the Guns, it's because of Movies, and Video Games and Violent Musical Acts.
If anyone faced that criticism directly it was the band Bodycount. Here is a section from a Hard 'N Heavy Video which was released before the controversy over their song "Cop Killer" exploded where they talk about exactly why they wrote that song and what it was really about.
For better or worse, this was one of the first groups to really talk deeply about gun violence. The song "Cop Killer" is really about Police Abuse and how the failure to address it can - and ultimately did - drive people to deadly retaliation.
But to show how deep the ignorance and bigotry goes - once the Fraternal Order of Police (A Union) complained about the song, the big issue become "Violent Rap Lyrics".
But this isn't a RAP Song, it's Rock Song. It wasn't geared or aimed at a Black Audience, Rock fans - and many Hip-Hop fans - are White.
Be that as it may the truly ironic things is that BodyCount and the song "Cop Killer" should be the national anthem of the NRA.
Why?
Because the 2nd Amendment isn't about protecting yourself in your home from a burglar (most of whom these days will use the strategy of surprise to have you circumvent your own security and weapons arrangement with a HOME INVASION) or even to save kids in the classroom. The 2nd Amendment is about protecting the people from a Corrupt Government Run Amok.
From Federalist 46.
That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; ,b>that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism. Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger.
The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.
So for those of us calling for an complete assault weapons ban, I think they've missed the point of the 2nd entirely. Being able to stand toe-to-toe with the Military is exactly the purpose of the 2nd, just as we've seen in Libya and just as we're currently seeing in Syria. It's about
Fighting the Power. The truth is that the Black Panther Party was exactly the kind of Militia that Madison was talking about.
Obviously though, having rights and actually using them in a rational and responsible way are too different things as many of the original Panther's discovered the hard way.
Just as an aside I'm working on a Kickstarter Project to Cover songs by Bands Like Bodycount. If you'd like to check it out - be my guest.
http://www.kickstarter.com/...
Vyan