NRA head says background checks will fix nothing

Jackie Kucinich and Paul Singer, USA TODAY | USATODAY

National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre used his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference Friday to slam several gun related proposals currently making their way through the Senate and rebut critics who have called him "crazy."

He accused gun control advocates of "just waiting for an unspeakable tragedy" like the December shootings at a Connecticut elementary school, so they could trot out ideas they have been pushing for years.

"It's troubling and it's saddening how quickly this whole debate has deteriorated," he said. "They've offered nothing new… Sen.Dianne Feinstein admitted that she had her gun ban ready to go a year ago, tucked away in a drawer just waiting for the right opportunity."

Feinstein reintroduced a revamped version of the assault weapons ban in January. The ban, which expired in 2004, was one of four gun-related bills approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in recent weeks.

Other measures approved by the panel include a bill to strengthen the penalties for the trafficking and straw purchasing of weapons, a proposal to increase funding for grants to improve school safety and a bill to expand criminal background checks to nearly every gun sale.

LaPierre said expanded background checks would inevitably lead to a national registry of firearms so that the government could either tax or take those guns.

"Their check only includes good, law abiding people," he said. "That's what they are after, the names of good, decent people all over this great country, who happen to own firearms to go into a federal database for universal registration, every lawful gun owner in America. That's their answer to criminal violence…are they insane?"

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is barred by law from creating any kind of gun registry.

LaPierre and the NRA supported universal background check in 1999. Asked about that support during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January, he said he had changed his mind because of the National Instant Check System is a "failure" because violators are rarely prosecuted.

LaPierre also used the speech to promote the group's school shield program which would put an armed guard in every school in America and mocked a video from the Department of Homeland Security suggesting that someone threatened by a shooter should grab a pair of scissors or other office supplies to defend themselves. To protect schools, "we recommend a trained professional with a gun. They recommend scissors. And they say we are crazy," LaPierre said.

He also pilloried Vice President Joe Biden for his comments in an online interview that to ward off intruders, he has advised his wife to taking a shotgun and fire two blasts into the air to scare them away.

"For four decades you have enjoyed the armed protection of Capitol Police and Secret Service officers all the while trying to destroy the second amendment rights of the rest of us" he said. "So when it comes to that right, sir, you keep your advice, we'll keep our guns."