Alex Wong/Getty Images(NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.) — The national spokesperson for the National Rifle Association delivered a heated speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday, denying the NRA had any responsibility for last week’s mass shooting at a Parkland, Fla. high school.
“We will not be gaslighted into thinking that we’re responsible for a tragedy that we had nothing to do with,” Dana Loesch said. “It is not our job to follow up on red flags. It is not our job to make sure that states are reporting to the background check system. It is not our job.”
Many student survivors of the shooting have started a campaign for gun control that targets the NRA, including demands that Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio refuse NRA campaign money.
If those blaming the NRA want to give the organization the authority and resources, the NRA will fix the problem by further securing schools, Loesch argued, echoing what President Donald Trump said Wednesday at a listening session with shooting survivors at the White House.
“We have resources available at anyone’s disposal – if they want to reinforce their schools,” Loesch said.
“I’ll say it again loud and clear – we’re parents too,” she said. “Don’t you think our kids deserve the same protection as our celebrities? Don’t you all think that our kids deserve the same protection as our athletes? As our banks? As our businesses? But yet we leave them the most unprotected.”
Loesch also spoke about being booed Wednesday night when she participated in a CNN town hall with shooting survivors and their families.
“The government has proven that they cannot keep you safe. And yet, some people want all of us to disarm. You heard that town hall last night. They cheered the confiscation of firearms.”
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