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SCOOP: The day after Columbine shootings, top NRA execs, PR experts, lobbyists scrambled...
SCOOP: The day after Columbine shootings, top NRA execs, PR experts, lobbyists scrambled on conference calls to strategize.
Over 2.5 hrs they laid out the playbook of the NRA after mass shootings for the next 20+ years.
I have the secret tapes.
Over 2.5 hrs they laid out the playbook of the NRA after mass shootings for the next 20+ years.
I have the secret tapes.
Link to tweet
They discuss the role of Republican politicians in the Columbine fallout as well and say they too are looking to the NRA for guidance.
"We got a call from Congressman Tancredo, who is ... as good as they get, and he's nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof," says Baker.
LaPierre claims that Senate Majority Whip Don Nickles, R-Okla., had secretly asked him for talking points to use after the shooting.
"I was talking to Nickles' office this morning, and what they told me is they're planning on sending them all to school[s] because what they wanted us to do was secretly provide them with talking points," LaPierre says.
"We got a call from Congressman Tancredo, who is ... as good as they get, and he's nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof," says Baker.
LaPierre claims that Senate Majority Whip Don Nickles, R-Okla., had secretly asked him for talking points to use after the shooting.
"I was talking to Nickles' office this morning, and what they told me is they're planning on sending them all to school[s] because what they wanted us to do was secretly provide them with talking points," LaPierre says.
And inside, then-NRA President Charlton Heston delivered the defiant message that its leaders had planned out in their private calls — a message very similar to the group's position on mass shootings today: The national media is not to be trusted, and any conversation about guns and the NRA after mass shootings is an untoward politicization of the issue.
"Why us? Because their story needs a villain. They want us to play the heavy in their drama of packaged grief, to provide riveting programming to run between commercials for cars and cat food," Heston said at the time to applause. "The dirty secret of this day and age is that political gain and media ratings all too often bloom on fresh graves."
Over the next two decades, this unapologetic message would come to define the NRA's tone in the wake of mass shootings at American schools. After 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech in 2007: "This is a time for people to grieve, to mourn, and to heal. This is not a time for political discussions or public policy debates." After the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School: "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." And after the 2018 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., the NRA's spokesperson said bluntly, "Many in legacy media love mass shootings."
NPR reached out to the NRA and provided it with transcripts of the audio we used in this story. To protect our source and in keeping with prior practice, we did not provide the tape. An NRA spokesperson called the story a "hit piece" and complained that the NRA was denied the tape.
"Why us? Because their story needs a villain. They want us to play the heavy in their drama of packaged grief, to provide riveting programming to run between commercials for cars and cat food," Heston said at the time to applause. "The dirty secret of this day and age is that political gain and media ratings all too often bloom on fresh graves."
Over the next two decades, this unapologetic message would come to define the NRA's tone in the wake of mass shootings at American schools. After 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech in 2007: "This is a time for people to grieve, to mourn, and to heal. This is not a time for political discussions or public policy debates." After the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School: "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." And after the 2018 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., the NRA's spokesperson said bluntly, "Many in legacy media love mass shootings."
NPR reached out to the NRA and provided it with transcripts of the audio we used in this story. To protect our source and in keeping with prior practice, we did not provide the tape. An NRA spokesperson called the story a "hit piece" and complained that the NRA was denied the tape.
https://www.npr.org/2021/11/09/1049054141/a-secret-tape-made-after-columbine-shows-the-nras-evolution-on-school-shootings
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