Politics

Parkland Survivors Call Out NRA for Gun Ban

HYPOCRISY

“I thought giving everyone a gun was to enhance safety.”

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Joshua Roberts/Reuters

The National Rifle Association is taking flak from Parkland’s school shooting survivors for banning guns at an upcoming convention to keep Vice President Mike Pence safe, a move they say exposes the pro-gun group’s hypocrisy. In an online announcement ahead of the NRA Leadership Conference in Dallas on May 4, the NRA advised attendees that no guns or “weapons of any kind” will be allowed into the convention center to adhere to Secret Service rules. The student-activists pushing for gun control in the wake of Parkland’s deadly Feb. 14 shooting were quick to question why the NRA is willing to forgo guns for the vice president, but not for schoolchildren. “You’re telling me to make the VP safe there aren’t any weapons around but when it comes to children they want guns everywhere?” Parkland survivor Matt Deitsch tweeted Saturday. Fred Guttenberg, the father of 14-year-old Parkland victim Jaime Guttenberg, wondered what happened to the NRA’s “good guys with guns” narrative. “According to the NRA, we should want everyone to have weapons when we are in public. … I thought giving everyone a gun was to enhance safety.”

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