I would have said something about working with both Democrats and Republicans from both houses of Congress. I would have said something about this is "Not just a Gun, or NRA, or victims problem. This is America's problem and we Americans need to work together to fix it." Or something along those lines. I wouldn't even mention the words gun, or magazine or clip and if pressed by a reporter I'd say something along the lines of.
"We recognize that there are many facets to this discussion and we have to bring solutions that protect the public at large but also the 2A rights of everyone." Or something along those lines. Keep it vague, keep it simple and certainly make it sound like I'm open to every and any ideas. "Sure sure, everything is on the table when it comes down to Brass Tacks."
OK, so you do that and then the next day all the editorials scream "NRA unwilling to name specifics" and "First chink in the NRA's armor". You have to understand, this isn't a case of an impartial media and LaPierre just fumbling about, the media is
looking for things to attack him on. There is a huge double standard at work here, the President can get up and say "Bipartisan blah, blah, common sense, blah, blah, reasonable, blah, blah, blah" and he gets a pass because he's part of the agenda. LaPierre wouldn't get the same pass. Look at what was reported before Wednesday, the NRA's silence was interpreted as damning evidence of their own guilt. Saying nothing, or saying nothing of substance, could easily be just as damaging as not wording what you're saying exactly right.
Also, you must remember that the court of public opinion is not the only arena, or even the most important one, that the NRA is competing in right now. It is important to make a showing of strength to politicians who are mulling over whether or not to support new gun control legislation. As I said before, the American people have a collectively short attention span. Many, if not most, people are not even aware of who their Representatives and Senators are, much less what they voted on two years ago. The NRA, however, does not have such a short memory and it's important that they send a message to Washington that a vote for gun control won't be forgotten and that the NRA's considerable political might will be brought to bear against politicians who throw us under the bus.
Well firstly you don't say stuff that makes it sound like your solution could also be the plot of a Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Western. If LaPierre could keep his mouth shut another week or send out underlings while a professional speech writer and a speech coach prep him for his first words, that may have done way more good then harm. Instead we're ending up with more harm then good.
If he'd kept silent any longer, he'd just accomplish letting the other side dominate the argument for that much longer. As I mentioned, there were already cries for the NRA to answer for their imagined "crimes" in less than a week. If they had stayed silent longer, those cries would have only grown more shrill.
The problem is that LaPierre is feeding the frenzy and making the news cycle on this that much longer. He's changing the conversation from the AR-15 and Adam Lanza (which was already slowing down due to the holidays) and redirected it to "Look how creepy I can sound on TV" followed by "Hey everyone, I'm an irresponsible gun nut and the answer to everything is more guns."
I don't think he's drawing it out any longer than it would've been drawn out anyway. President Obama and Sen. Feinstein have already said that the issue will be taken up in January, so the media knows that they've got to keep emotions high until then thus keeping the iron hot long enough for the anti-gun politicians to strike. Like I said earlier, the anti's thrive on emotional response because the facts aren't on their side. If the media is busy trying to discredit LaPierre, then they're not using their time and resources to parade more of the victims across the television screen which would arguably be the more effective tactic for them.
My God, I near fell out of my chair when I heard him talk about how we needed more guns. Yeah, it might be factually correct but that doesn't mean he had to say it. Why tell the angry villagers with pitchforks exactly what they don't want to hear? I mean be vague and talk about how much you are looking forward to working with lawmakers to make sure that such a tragedy will never happen again.
In other words, yet again. Say stuff that sounds soothing instead of inflammatory.
As I said earlier, if LaPierre were too vague, then he'd be accused of misdirection (never mind that the other side does the same thing, they're part of the agenda). If they weren't attacking LaPierre and the NRA, they'd still be dancing in the blood of the victims trying to keep emotions as raw as possible for as long as possible. Regardless of what LaPierre says or doesn't say, the media isn't going to just let this fade away, at least not until some other agenda that they want to push even more comes along. The sooner we can get them bogged down debating facts instead of eliciting emotions, the less the chances that new gun control laws will pass. If LaPierre is too soothing, he'll be completely ignored.
David Greggory is there to be a tough interviewer, that's his job and if LaPierre wasn't up to the task then he shouldn't have gone on it at all. Better to be thought a fool than to open ones mouth and remove all doubt.
One can be a tough interviewer and still be impartial, Gregory was not. He repeatedly cut off LaPierre and/or tried to keep him from thoroughly explaining anything. A tough interview and a hostile interview are not necessarily the same thing and this was definitely the latter.
I'm so sick of hearing this because it's this that makes us sound insane. That's also why I said find the odd maker of clips that hold 200 (TWO HUNDRED) rounds and then throw them under the bus. If a magazine holds 200 rounds it's probably impractical to begin with and that's why it's only a novelty item for the few and far between who happen to come across that particular makers magazine. In other words, find something insanely useless to us and sacrifice it at the alter of good PR.
The problem is, that won't placate them. Let me give you a historical example here: The NRA supported the National Firearms Act in 1934. The reason they did this was because, at the time, there was talk of trying to add handguns to the chopping block as well. The NRA's rationale at the time was that by giving them something that's probably impractical and not commonly used to begin with (machine guns, silencers, etc.) that they'd leave more common guns alone.
Fast forward 30 years or so and President Kennedy is killed with a mail-order surplus rifle. The anti's didn't say "well, we banned machine guns and this still happened, maybe we need to look at something besides guns" but instead went after mail-order firearms and enacted the Gun Control Act in 1968.
Fast forward another 20 years or so and there are a couple of highly-publicized shootings with scary-looking semi-auto rifles. Rather than admit that neither the NFA nor GCA prevented the shootings, the anti's chose to go after guns that they dubbed as "semi-automatic assault weapons" and got the '94 AWB passed.
Jump ahead another few years to Columbine and another highly publicized shooting brings not an admission that the AWB didn't work, but screaming about a "gun show loophole" and calls for even more gun control. Unfortunately for the anti's, we'd learned by then that they won't be placated and have thus far shut down attempts at more gun control. "Throwing them a bone" may sound like the safe thing to do now, but it's been shown time and time again not to work.
Wayne LaPierre should avoid saying the word "can't" just like we should stop saying "can't" and instead quickly rephrase our answer with "can." As in, "Sure David Greggory, we are responsible people and that's why we are decrying the production of and sales of 900 round Magazines for the AR-15." See what I did there, I substituted "no, we can't give up 50 Round magazines" to "get rid of those horrible 900 round Magazine imidiately."
No, what you did is show the other side, and the politicians, a sign of weakness while throwing some of your fellow gun owners under the bus. Just because they "only" want 900 round magazines today, that doesn't mean that they won't be after the 50 round magazines tomorrow. As I see it, better to keep them tied up with the ridiculous stuff than to let them get to the important things.
I don't do this stuff profesionally, Wayne allegedly does and for that reason along I'd expect more from him.
Because you don't do this professionally, what makes you think that you understand the full paradigm of what's going on? I assure you, there's a lot more to it that who can sound the most soothing and comforting on TV.
SOUND CONCILIATORY so that you can make it look like the other side is the one seeming unreasonable instead of the other way around.
What you or I see as conciliatory, the other side will characterize as weakness and an act of penance. Being conciliatory suggest that our side is part of the problem. We aren't and we need to make that known.
