Wayne LaPierre is not crazy.

He says we can call him crazy but I don’t think that’s his problem.

He was on Meet the Press and here’s some of what he had to say:

“If I’m a mom or a dad and I’m dropping my child off at school I’d feel a whole lot safer” if there were trained armed security guards or police protecting the school from people such as Lanza, LaPierre said, although he conceded that “nothing is perfect” as a deterrent against crime.

LaPierre also said, “We have a mental health system in this country that has completely and totally collapsed. We have no national database of these lunatics” and complained that de-institutionalization of the mentally ill had put too many dangerous people on the streets of America. “We have a completely cracked mentally ill system that’s got these monsters walking the streets,” LaPierre said.

LaPierre goes on to suggest that we spend $2 billion on training armed school security guards.  Ahhh, but that could be a problem.  We don’t pay non-teacher school personnel too terribly well and these days, they’re all on contract without bennies.  You’re going to have to find a lot of very altruistic people for that kind of job.  And if they’re altruistic, aren’t they also likely to not see guns as an answer?  Besides, the vast majority of armed school security guards will never see action in their entire careers, if you can call that kind of job a career.  What will they do with their time besides frisking the odd MILF who drops off cupcakes at the office but forgets to bring her driver’s license?

It’s a problem when people are this tense, but one which LaPierre promotes anyway.  Before 9-11, parents were not terribly worried about dropping their kids off at school.  But as soon as everyone started to see an elementary school as a soft target of terrorism, the electronic doors and intercoms went up, the security cameras are mounted on every corner and no one feels safe.  It doesn’t help that the local news and Fox is broadcasting a steady diet of molestation and kidnapping in numbers disproportional to the actual statistics.

But all that security comes with a price and the price will continue to rise as long as there are people roaming the streets with guns.  In LaPierre’s world, the people with the most liberty and freedom are the lunatics with the guns.  The rest of us have to live behind barricades.

As for the databases to check the mentally ill, doesn’t LaPierre know that the Republican party sees maintenance of such databases as “discretionary spending”?  If we left it up to the Tea Partiers and Libertarians, the government would consist of a military and not much else.  Besides, I believe it was the NRA that fought tooth and nail against background checks.  But whatever.

The mentally ill are not all violent and I’d be pissed off if I had autism or aspbergers and suddenly started to be treated like a loose cannon.  Same goes for convicted felons.  Not all of them are dangerous.  Some felons go to prison for securities fraud or embezzlement or for possession of drugs.  And I’ve never met a video game that has killed anyone.

What makes people dangerous is not a video game or paranoid schizophrenia or a felony record.  It’s the ready access to a gun.

The solution seems like a no-brainer, which is why I think LaPierre is not crazy.  He just has no brain.

Wayne LaPierre wants to turn school into a combat zone

Getting ready for school

It’s hard to believe that the NRA thinks it can get any traction by upping the ante in school hallways.  But I was on the school board once upon a time and I know that when parents feel threatened, they become somewhat, um, irrational.  (Remind me to tell you about the woman who threw a baggie full of her daughter’s golden lice ridden hair at the BOE and demanded we shut the schools down until the critters were gone for good.  True story.  Oh, the stories I could tell.)

The NRA’s Wayne La Pierre said this today:

“The only way — the only way — to stop a monster from killing our kids is to be personally involved and invested in a plan of absolute protection,” Mr. LaPierre said. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

Gun-free school zones identified by signs, he said, serve only to “tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to effect maximum mayhem with minimum risk.”

“So why is the idea of a gun good when it’s used to protect the president of our country or our police but bad when it’s used to protect our children in our schools?” he continued. “They’re our kids. They’re our responsibility. And it’s not just our duty to protect them; it’s our right to protect them.”

Clever.  LaPierre goes right to the gut, which has been well known to circumvent the brain, especially when it comes to parents and their children.  What might be lost on parents, but certainly not lost on LaPierre, is that the latest gun catastrophe is a primo business opportunity.

If you’re terrified that your kids are going to be slaughtered on the way to second period, no amount of protection will be sufficient. I don’t think making schools into fortresses with armed guards is enough.  Can we get some razor wire on the 20 foot fence?  How about kevlar body armor for everyone, K-12?  And forget gym class.  We can have target practice every day, mandatory.

Because, according to LaPierre, childhood is for sissies and slackers.  The “only way” to keep insane killers from killing our kids is to arm ourselves to the teeth, terrify parents and watch all that property tax money flow to the security industry instead of the string program or the arts teachers.

It’s the only way.  Increasing the separation between insane killers and their guns will not work.  Or we could try never allowing our kids to leave the womb.  That might work.  Don’t think it hasn’t crossed some parents’ minds.

But doesn’t that mean that the persons with the most freedom and liberty are insane killers with guns?  They’re apparently allowed to do whatever they want.  There’s no stopping them.  And if you aren’t packing heat, well, then you’re asking for it.  We can’t deprive these people of their right to be both insane and armed.

LaPierre is probably Ok with cuts to Social Security too.  Damn seniors need to learn to hunt for their dinner.

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In the same NYTimes article, US Rep Mike Thompson (D California) made this disturbing statement:

“Everyone agrees our schools, movie theaters shopping malls, streets and communities need to be safer,” said a statement by Representative Mike Thompson, Democrat of California. “But we need a comprehensive approach that goes beyond just arming more people with more guns to make this happen.”

I don’t agree that what we need is to make public spaces safer.  The burden and expense keeps getting dumped on the innocent who can’t move around freely and must always be on their guard.  I’m really shocked that a Democrat would make this statement.  It’s a complete capitulation to the security industry.  That’s how they want us to feel- like no place is safe enough.  Shame on Thompson.  He needs to be calming people down, not giving into their gut reactions to an insane act.

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Lenore Skenazy at FreeRangeKids posts about  the fallout of Sandy Hook that results in disintegration of community spirit and increase in distrust.  I doubt that insane killers care one way or the other but the 1% are absolutely delighted that we’re eyeing each other and keeping our distances.

Hmmm, maybe what we need is Family Movie Night: