O'Donnell calls NRA's LaPierre a 'lobbyist for mass-murderers'

Friday night on "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell," host Lawrence O'Donnell excoriated NRA head Wayne LaPierre's press conference from Friday morning. In an extended diatribe, O'Donnell called LaPierre a "lobbyist for mass-murderers," and sarcastically marveled that of course the NRA's response to the Sandy Hook massacre is the one that poses the organization the least inconvenience.

O'Donnell, like many liberals who watched Friday's press conference, was taken aback by LaPierre's glibness and his rote refusal to acknowledge that his organization might have had any role in making heavy weapons too readily available. The half-hour spectacle, noted O'Donnell, "did not include a single word of apology."

Washington stopped on Friday to listen to LaPierre and to see what he would have to say about his organization with regard to the tragic shooting last week in Newtown, Connecticut. O'Donnell disputed his legitimacy, saying that in a country of 400 million people, a man who represents only about 4 million card-carrying constituents should draw the cameras of every network in cable TV.

LaPierre, said O'Donnell is mostly in opposition to the majority of NRA members on topics like background checks and the availability of assault weapons.

"So what did this man have to say today?" O'Donnell asked, "This man who got all this attention, this man who is the CEO of a $200 million business that plays with the dues money of four million people, most of whom disagree with this man on some of the issues he cares about most?"

He called for more guns. LaPierre said that the NRA wants to placed armed police in every school, which, O'Donnell pointed out, would require the government to hire 132,183 new police officers and arm them right away.

How convenient for the NRA, O'Donnell said, that their solution is the one that is the that doesn't inconvenience the NRA at all. LaPierre blamed the media, video games and violent TV and films, but steadfastly refused to lay any share of the blame at his own organization's feet.

“Here is the lobbyist for mass murderers, the only lobbyist that mass murderers have," said O'Donnell, "calling actors, actresses, people whose pensions might be invested in mutual funds complicit co-conspirators in these murders.”

The host said that LaPierre's fanatical refusal to brook discussion of any laws restricting gun access is what's to blame for tragedies like Sandy Hook's uniquely American flavor, where random violence is meted out on an almost industrial scale. The NRA's chief lobbyist, he said, is "the man who made sure the killer was properly armed" in the school massacre.

Watch the video, embedded via MSNBC, below:

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