On Monday's The Last Word, MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell portrayed NRA members as imagining themselves killing police officers in a "psychotic vision of an armed uprising" as he ranted against the NRA's Wayne LaPierre alluding to the benefits of American citizens being armed while a fugitive like Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is on the loose. O'Donnell:
The NRA's cause, it's mission, what that convention was about is making sure everyone else, everyone other than police officers can get any kind of gun and ammunition they want any time they want it. In fact, the NRA's mission is to make sure citizens can outgun police officers, make sure we all have access to even more lethal weapons than police departments use or can afford. The psychotic vision of an armed uprising against our government, the uprising that 44 percent of Republicans think might have to happen soon is an uprising against police officers.
Police officers are the first people those armed Republicans and NRA members imagine themselves shooting and killing with guns and high-capacity magazines.
The MSNBC host devoted the bulk of the show's regular "Rewrite" segment to trying to prove that the Boston bombers would not have been stopped at any point by armed citizens in reaction to LaPierre suggesting that many Bostonians might have felt better if they had been armed during the manhunt for the fugitives. O'Donnell began the segment by playing a clip of the NRA executive vice president asking, "How many Bostonians wished they'd had a gun two weeks ago?" The MSNBC host then responded:
Yeah, Wayne LaPierre went there. And the answer is: None of the Bostonians I talked to wished they had a gun. No one I talked to in Boston for a week after the marathon bombing wished they had a gun. Guns would not have done anyone any good at any time in that story in Boston, and we know it.
If every man, woman and child at the finish line of the Boston marathon had a gun, it would have done them absolutely no good when the bombs went off.
As he went through the timeline of events and people the Tsarnaev brothers interacted with to try to prove that armed citizens could not have impacted the outcome, O'Donnell suggested that NRA members were not concerned about the death of MIT police officer Sean Collier, who was murdered by Tamerlan Tsarnaev. After calling the NRA audience "reality-challenged," O'Donnell continued:
Wayne doesn't care about or even know the facts of the Boston case, so he probably doesn't know that the first person that the bombers encountered after the bombing had a gun. That was MIT police officer Sean Collier. He was assassinated by Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Officer Collier never had a chance to use his gun. Wayne Lapierre did not lead a moment of silence for Sean Collier this weekend at that convention. His death was not worthy of NRA attention, even during the Boston section of Wayne LaPierre's speech.
The MSNBC host concluded his rant by calling LaPierre's question about Bostonians wishing they had been armed "sleazy" and "exploitive," and ended up suggesting NRA culpability in terrorist Tamerlan Tsarnaev being able to arm himself, even while acknowledging that how he obtained his weapon is so far unknown to the public. O'Donnell:
Wayne LaPierre's sleazy, exploitive question, "How many Bostonians wished they'd had a gun two weeks ago?" was spoken like a man who knows nothing about Boston, was appreciated by a relentlessly ignorant NRA audience that knows nothing about what happened in Boston. What Bostonians wished was that Tamerlan Tsarnaev didn't have a gun. Officer Sean Collier would be alive today if the Tsarnaev brothers couldn't get their hands on a gun. Transit Officer Richard Donohue wouldn't have been wounded in the Laurel Street shootout if the Tsarnaevs couldn't get their hands on a gun.
And we don't know yet exactly how Tamerlan Tsarnaev got the gun used to assassinate Officer Sean Collier and to wound Officer Richard Donohue, but we do know that getting that gun was made easier, much, much easier by the life's work of Wayne LaPierre.
Below is a complete transcript of the "Rewrite" segment from the Monday, May 6, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC:
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL, IN OPENING TEASER: It was a weekend of lies and paranoia in Houston at the NRA convention. Lies about the President. Lies about the Second Amendment, and lies about Boston.
(...)
WAYNE LAPIERRE, NRA EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: How many Bostonians wished they'd had a gun two weeks ago?
O'DONNELL: Yeah, Wayne LaPierre went there. And the answer is: None of the Bostonians I talked to wished they had a gun. No one I talked to in Boston for a week after the marathon bombing wished they had a gun. Guns would not have done anyone any good at any time in that story in Boston, and we know it.
If every man, woman and child at the finish line of the Boston marathon had a gun, it would have done them absolutely no good when the bombs went off. The three dead would still have been killed. All of the injured and maimed would still have suffered the same injuries. And the people who were not injured would not have reached for their guns, they would have rushed to help the injured, just like all the gun-toting police officers did. No one with a gun would have taken a shot at the bombers because no one knew who the bombers were.
But Wayne LaPierre could still ask his reality-challenged audience, "How many Bostonians wished they'd had a gun two weeks ago?" Wayne doesn't care about or even know the facts of the Boston case, so he probably doesn't know that the first person that the bombers encountered after the bombing had a gun. That was MIT police officer Sean Collier. He was assassinated by Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Officer Collier never had a chance to use his gun. Wayne Lapierre did not lead a moment of silence for Sean Collier this weekend at that convention. His death was not worthy of NRA attention, even during the Boston section of Wayne LaPierre's speech. The next person Tamerlan Tsarnaev approached was a citizen of China who is so naive, so trusting, so not from around here, that when Tamerlan Tsarnaev approached his car in Cambridge late at night, in the dark, the Chinese man actually rolled down his window to talk to Tamerlan and got himself hijacked.
The Tsarnaev brothers' next encounter was with the Watertown police on Laurel Street where the police killed Tamerlan and wounded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in a wild shootout. Is Wayne LaPierre saying it would have been helpful to have the residents of Laurel Street join in that gun battle? He is very clearly saying that he believes that a lot of us in Boston two weeks ago wished we had a gun, but he never says what we would have or could have done with guns if we had them.
Now, watch how Wayne LaPierre concluded his exploitation of the Boston bombing tragedy.
LAPIERRE CLIP #1: I said it before, and I'll say it again: No bill in Congress, no Rose Garden speech will ever change that inescapable fact that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
LAPIERRE CLIP #2: Boston proves it. When brave law enforcement officers did their jobs in that city so courageously, good guys with guns stopped terrorists with guns.
O'DONNELL: He uses Boston as a device to get him to his punchline: "Good guys with guns stopped terrorists with guns." And he blurs it there because the proverbial NRA good guy with a gun is a citizen with a gun, not a police officer. There is no debate in this country, there's no debate in the United States Senate about police officers having guns. The NRA's cause, it's mission, what that convention was about is making sure everyone else, everyone other than police officers can get any kind of gun and ammunition they want any time they want it. In fact, the NRA's mission is to make sure citizens can outgun police officers, make sure we all have access to even more lethal weapons than police departments use or can afford. The psychotic vision of an armed uprising against our government, the uprising that 44 percent of Republicans think might have to happen soon is an uprising against police officers.
Police officers are the first people those armed Republicans and NRA members imagine themselves shooting and killing with guns and high-capacity magazines. Wayne LaPierre talks them into stockpiling those things in their homes. It was not Wayne LaPierre's armed citizenry that stopped terrorists in Boston, it was the Watertown police, all six of them, plus a transit officer who got shot. Wayne LaPierre's sleazy, exploitive question, "How many Bostonians wished they'd had a gun two weeks ago?" was spoken like a man who knows nothing about Boston, was appreciated by a relentlessly ignorant NRA audience that knows nothing about what happened in Boston. What Bostonians wished was that Tamerlan Tsarnaev didn't have a gun. Officer Sean Collier would be alive today if the Tsarnaev brothers couldn't get their hands on a gun. Transit Officer Richard Donohue wouldn't have been wounded in the Laurel Street shootout if the Tsarnaevs couldn't get their hands on a gun.
And we don't know yet exactly how Tamerlan Tsarnaev got the gun used to assassinate Officer Sean Collier and to wound Officer Richard Donohue, but we do know that getting that gun was made easier, much, much easier by the life's work of Wayne LaPierre.
-- Brad Wilmouth is a news analyst at the Media Research Center