On Wednesday, students from thousands of schools across the country walked out to protest the government’s failure to protect kids from gun violence and to demand tougher gun restrictions. The National Rifle Association, the most powerful defender of the status quo, was not happy.

The tax-exempt lobbying group’s national spokesperson Dana Loesch attempted to dismiss the effort on Thursday morning’s edition of Fox & Friends.

Loesch suggested that many of the kids participating in the anti-gun violence action may just have been paying tribute to the 17 people killed at last month’s horrific Parkland mass school shooting.

“You can memorialize the lives lost but it doesn’t necessarily mean every single person who went out is somehow supportive of gun control measures.” The event was explicitly organized to hold accountable the elected officials who have refused to take action to stop gun violence.


Loesch then launched into her typical (and likely false) claim that “gun control would not have prevented” the school shooting.

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Loesch also attempted to further dismiss the student-lead action by suggesting that the protesters were pawns of powerful political forces — and that some of those forces are anti-Semitic.

“I do wish we had some in the political class that would stop trying to exploit this six ways to Sunday for their own political gain,” she complained.


“I know the walkouts yesterday were organized by the Women’s March, which are dealing with some serious anti-Semitic accusations right now, which maybe perhaps wasn’t the best optic I think they make it harder for people to be heard when they get some of the attention that these kids are getting from everyone, because they’re expressing their viewpoints.”

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The anti-Semitic charge is quite a stretch. Wednesday’s #Enough National School Walkout was a series of student-organized and student-run protests, supported by Women’s March Youth Empower, a youth component of the national Women’s March organization. One co-chair of Women’s March has been under fire for her support of Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader who has repeatedly made anti-Semitic comments for decades.

Think Progress hates when you mention that the Women’s March has a problem with antisemitism and bigotry https://t.co/Ow2enoi360 https://t.co/QyL5GxJ3QE — Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) March 15, 2018

Loesch concluded that students and others should instead focus on blaming the Broward County sheriff, “not blaming mothers like me and law-abiding gun owners in America for his mistakes.”