WASHINGTON, D.C. -- So far, the 2014 edition of CPAC has proven to be remarkably spittle-free. Of course, today was Big Speech Day, so the focus mainly was on the Republican A-list politicians and what they would say. Even today's breakout panels were relatively tame; there was a Breitbart seance honoring Mark Levin, and a long panel about the IRS dumbassery in which bureaucratic delays were reconfigured once again as the Inquisition and in which people vigorously drove nails into their own palms. Otherwise, there is largely a notable truce on the culture wars, and not even the anti-choice people have the outsized presence that they once had. Most freak flags are at half-staff.

And then, hoorah, there's Wayne LaPierre of the NRA.

Oh, lordy, he came loaded for bear, you should pardon the expression. The country is on the precipice and life out there is a Cormac McCarthy novel, except without the laughs.

"You know, freedom has never needed our defense more than right now," he said. "Almost everywhere you look, something has gone wrong. You know it in your heart. You feel it in your gut. Something in our country has gone wrong...All across America, people come up to me and they say, 'Wayne? I've never been worried about this country until now.' They say it not in anger, but with sadness in their eyes...We fear for the safety of our families. That's why neighborhood streets that once were filled with bicycles and skateboards and laughter in the air, now sit empty and silent."

Children do not play any more because of trigger locks? Background checks? Or is it because, as Wayne points out, the woods are full of monsters.

"We trust what we know in our hearts to be right," he said. "We trust our freedom. In this uncertain world, surrounded by lies and corruption everywhere you look, there is no greater freedom than the right to survive and protect our families with all the rifles, shotguns and handguns we want. We know, in the world that surrounds us, there are terrorists and there are home invaders, drug cartels, carjackers, knockout gamers and rapers, and haters and campus killers, and airport killers, shopping mall killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse our society that sustains us all."

Yikes. No wonder nobody skateboards any more.

"So, I ask you," he said. "do you trust this government to protect you?"

"NOOOOOOOO!!!" replied the crowd.

I guess all the cops can go home now.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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