Wayne LaPierre followed the NRA’s customary post-mass shooting moves in his CPAC speech – and at times sounded like Trump’s twin

The National Rifle Association (NRA) perfected Trumpism before Trump, attacking the mainstream media for lies and hypocrisy, bouncing from one culture war battle to another, using each new outrage to raise the bar for the next.

NRA head breaks silence to attack gun control advocates: 'They hate individual freedom' Read more

For the NRA’s executive vice-president, Wayne LaPierre, a hardened provocateur, Thursday’s speech addressing yet another school shooting was comparatively muted.

Five years ago, he sparked national outrage by responding to the murder of 20 elementary school children at Sandy Hook with the demand to put more “good guys with guns” in American schools.

He simply reiterated that same proposal on Thursday, after another school shooting left 17 dead, arguing that the country needed to “harden our schools” against attack, and pledging “absolutely free” NRA support to any school in America that asked for it.

Donald Trump had already endorsed the “more guns in schools” approach himself the day before at the White House.

LaPierre made the customary moves: denunciations of creeping socialism, warnings that American’s gun rights could suddenly come under threat, blame of the mainstream media for its deceptions. At times, he sounded like Trump’s political identical twin.

Play Video 1:44 'We must immediately harden our schools' says NRA's Wayne LaPierre – video

In response to the new political threat of hundreds of furious, social-media savvy teenagers organizing against the NRA, LaPierre did not have much new to offer besides attacks on the integrity of American law enforcement.

Dana Loesch, an NRA spokeswoman, directly blamed the FBI and its former director James Comey for failing to prevent the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida.



“Maybe if you politicized your agency less and did your job more we wouldn’t have these problems,” Loesch said in her own CPAC speech Thursday, referring to Comey, the FBI director Trump fired amid an investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

McClatchy reported in January that the FBI is also investigating whether a Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin used the NRA to improperly funnel foreign money into the American election process to support Trump.

LaPierre said he was saddened by the FBI’s “corruption” and “unethical agents”, and suggested the FBI’s rank and file needed to do a better job of policing its own leaders.

“What’s hard to understand is why no one at the FBI stood up and called BS on its rogue leadership,” he said. “Where was the systemic resistance?”

FBI officials have admitted that the bureau failed to properly follow up on two tips that the 19-year-old Parkland shooter was dangerous and might be planning a school attack. Trump fired Comey in May, months before the FBI reportedly failed to follow up on the earlier tip about the shooter.



LaPierre noted the NRA’s 5 million members included a large number of largest law enforcement officials, making the group’s choice to attack the FBI’s mistakes more striking.

The NRA leader attacked the Democratic party as being taken over by “a tidal wave of new European-style socialists”, citing a list of likely Democratic presidential candidates.

“There are now over 100 chapters of Young Democratic Socialists of America at many universities,” he said, an attack that the young socialists greeted on Twitter as a delightful and unexpected PR victory.

He also highlighted reporting flaws in the current background check system for gun sales, perhaps setting the stage for the passage of modest bipartisan legislation to fix these gaps. The legislation is sponsored by Senator John Cornyn, an NRA ally, and tentatively endorsed by Donald Trump.

The NRA has faced months of criticism that its attack ads on the resistance against Trump were flirting with incitement to violence or full civil war.



But LaPierre said the group was not actually advocating violence.

“Let’s be clear: we are never talking about an armed resistance against the socialist corruption of our government,” he said.