Gun Lobby Chief Slams 'politicization' Of Florida School Shooting

Washington, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Feb, 2018 ) :America's powerful gun lobby on Thursday accused its critics of exploiting a deadly Florida school shooting for political gain, as President Donald Trump responded to demands for tougher regulation with a deeply controversial call to arm teachers.

National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre hit back at what he called "the shameful politicization of tragedy," fighting a rearguard defense against street protests and mounting demands to tighten America's permissive gun laws.

As Trump and LaPierre advocated countering shootings with guns, the Broward County sheriff said an armed deputy was present on campus but failed to act to stop the Valentine's Day rampage that left 17 dead in a Florida high school.

In his first public comments since the shooting, LaPierre reiterated long-standing accusations that gun control advocates were seeking to roll back the constitutional right to bear arms. "It's a classic strategy right out of the playbook of a poisonous movement," he told an annual conservative conference outside Washington, hitting out at what he called "socialists" on the political left, and at the "so-called national news media.

" "For them, it's not a safety issue, it's a political issue," he charged.

"They hate the NRA. They hate the Second Amendment. They hate individual freedom." He also doubled down on the NRA's longstanding position that armed Americans were the first line of defense in confronting deadly attacks, saying: "To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun." It later emerged there was an armed sheriff's deputy on campus during the Florida shooting, but he failed to act, and resigned after being suspended without pay.

Sheriff Scott Israel said that Scott Peterson, the school resource deputy, took up a position outside and "never went in." He should have "went in, addressed the killer, killed the killer," Israel said. Two other deputies were placed on restricted duty during an investigation to determine if "they could have done more or should have done more" ahead of the shooting, Israel said.