Dear Sir or Madam,
I am so sorry that you lost
your (son/daughter), among many other children, in a school shooting
today. I understand that he or she was the apple of your eye, the love of
your life, your everything, your reason for existence, yada, yada, etc. I
regret that a young man who couldn’t get health care before he slipped
into violent schizophrenia loaded an AR-15, a Glock 9 mm and a 12-gauge shotgun
with 150 rounds of ammunition. I feel really bad that he then drove to
(Insert Name) (Elementary/Middle/High) School in (Insert Name of Typical
American Town) where your child was a student. It’s regrettable that he
then stalked the halls of your child’s school with a semiautomatic assault
rifle spitting dozens of rounds a minute. I feel bad and dismayed
and whatnot that your child’s liver was pulverized, his/her jaw was found in
the hallway, and pieces of his/her intestines were sprayed onto the walls.
I feel totally awful that your child slowly bled to death in excruciating pain
surrounded by dying classmates. That must be tough.
I
realize that you may have thought that you live in a democracy, or even a
republic governed by laws. But today, we have proven that to be
questionable. The gun industry made
$31.8 billion last
year. This number climbs steadily every year. And we will stop
at nothing to make sure that number continues to climb. I am aware that 56%
of Americans support
an assault weapons ban. I understand that Americans were horrified by
what their culture has become when schoolchildren can be mowed down senselessly
in a Connecticut elementary school.
Yes, I
know that there was finally some political will to curb the epidemic of 30,000
gun deaths a year in
America. But the millions that the NRA spends in lobbying
ensures that your “democratically elected Congress” can do nothing without
the gun industry’s permission. We at the NRA opened our wallet and made
damn sure the entire GOP and most Democrats in red states subjugated the will
of the people to the interests of corporate profit. Because of us,
the assault weapons ban bill failed in the Senate. We made sure that
corporations continue to be able to ignore the Second Amendment with
impunity. We made sure that guns will
never be “well-regulated” in this country as long as they are well-profitable.
Through
your grieving and whatever, I want you to understand one thing. I realize
that the child who you kissed goodbye just this morning as you dropped him/her
off at school now resembles ground beef, but that is not relevant. In
the end, only one thing matters in life: profit. No one
should care that your little Billy, Janie or Joey or whatever you called it
died after spraying three gallons of blood all over a 2-foot high desk this
morning.
The
market value of your child’s life pales in comparison to the value of millions
of firearms. This is especially true when mentally unhinged people are
buying entire arsenals of weapons. The GOP has gutted
mental healthservices across the country to balance state
budgets. And we at the NRA have advertised aggressively to stoke the paranoia typical of mental illness. For
us, it doesn’t matter who buys the guns, as long as they are bought. It
doesn’t matter who dies as long as $31.8 billion grows to, say, $34.6 billion
this year. Your
child, for whose funeral I’m sure you are busy preparing, was a tiny, insignificant
cost compared to the billions in profit that the gun industry will make this
year.
Don’t even think about trying
to use this “tragedy” of the death of your son/daughter or whoever else to
change laws. Don’t even think about becoming civically engaged or trying
to work with the system to improve society, curb the ongoing slaughter or
regulate machines that are only designed to kill dozens of people in seconds.
You do not own this country,
because you did not buy it. We bought it. We own your government.
You will get nothing.
I’m sure
you’re sitting there, emotional because you lost your child. But
imagine how much the gun corporations would cry if they had lost some
profit? Imagine how emotional I would be if I didn’t get paid
around $1 million a
year to lobby for the gun manufacturers? Look at you, sitting there,
thinking only about your “child” and not about MY MONEY! You people make
me sick.
Sincerely,
Wayne LaPierre
NRA Vice President
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