6 Things the NRA Didn’t Blame for Mass Shootings

Video games and Hurricane Sandy made the list. Adam Lanza’s Bushmaster didn’t.


In this morning’s National Rifle Association (NRA) press conference, Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre found a lot of things to blame for the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, many of them rehashed from the NRA’s past responses to mass shootings. Video games, the absence of armed policemen in schools, and pure evil made the list, as did Hurricane Sandy.

Here’s what LaPierre didn’t blame:

.223 BUSHMASTER SEMI-AUTOMATIC ASSAULT RIFLE

The weapon used by Adam Lanza when he massacred 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, according to the medical examiner (December, 2012). 

 

.223-CALIBER SMITH & WESSON M&P15

One of the weapons used by James Holmes at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, that killed and injured a total of 70 people (July, 2012).

 

.40-CALIBER GLOCK

The weapon used by Jeffrey Weise, who murdered nine people and wounded five others on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota (March, 2005).

 

GLOCK 19 SEMI-AUTOMATIC PISTOL

One of the weapons used by Seung-Hui Cho, who injured and killed 56 people at the Virginia Tech campus (April, 2007).

 

7.62 mm AK-47 Chinese variant

The weapon used by former Caltrans employee Arturo Reyes Torres, who opened fire at a maintenance yard, killing five and injuring two.

 

INTRATEC TEC-9 PISTOL

One of the weapons used by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who opened fire in Columbine High School, injuring and killing 39 (April, 1999).
 

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Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

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So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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