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, its 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 mo more lethal weapons than police officers can use and afford. the psychotic vision of an armed uprising against our government, the uprising that 44% of republicans think might have to happen soon is an uprising against police officers.
how many in boston wish they had a gun two weeks ago? 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 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 that weren t 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
lawrence, is a man named james porter, attorney from alabama. he is somebody whose father was a president of the nra back in 1959 and 60. that was a time when the national rifle association in fact support gun control. so mr. porter s challenge within the nra is to live up to his father s legacy and at the same time communicate to nra loyalists that he has made the transition as someone who now is staunchly opposed to gun control. you saw it coming from mr. porter in a speech a year ago in new york state and saw it again this weekend in the speech he gave in houston. and he s also attempting it seems to broaden the message of the nra, to broaden it beyond guns and make it a, quote, culture war, which i think is part of a strategy, something the nra does often when it feels like the gun issue may not be saleable, try to broaden the message. this time there may be too much focus on them and they may face troubles.
we ve got to make sure we can get our hands on every gun we can because otherwise we re not going to have them around. you put that together with a tragedy like newtown in which then all of a sudden the rhetoric changes, the president comes out and starts hammering at the issue of gun control, and one thing will lead to the other. mike weisser, ana marie cox and frank smyth, thank you for joining me. thank you. coming up in tonight s rewrite, the lies wayne lapierre told this weekend about boston and the people of boston. and the breaking news story unfolding out of cleveland tonight, three women, young women, each missing for about ten years, all found alive today, reportedly being held against their will for all those years. the wright brothers became the first in flight.
guns and make it a, quote, culture war, which i think is part of a strategy, something the nra does often when it feels like the gun issue may not be saleable, try to broaden the message. this time there may be too much focus on them and they may face troubles. you mention in your letter to wayne lapierre that gun sales are what his mission is all about, and you say in 2011 ruger stock was trading at $21 a share. now it is at 51. smith and wesson was 3 bucks a share, today it is almost $9 a share. what happened in that period of time to push this share price of these gun makers up like that? well, those prices really started going up not so much in 2011 but really once the president was reelected. once president obama was reelected, and the nra of course spent four years reminding