Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 28, 1993 TAG: 9302280034
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
NRA SAYS IT NEEDS NEW IMAGE
The head of the National Rifle Association says his organization must change its image as "a bunch of extremist crazies" if it is to avoid further setbacks like the one-gun-a-month bill just passed by the Virginia legislature.That's why Wayne LaPierre says he's out to change the NRA's focus and make it "the No. 1 crime-fighting organization in the country."
LaPierre, who was in Roanoke on Saturday to speak to a hunting group, was unrepentant about any of the stands the NRA has taken, such as its defense of semi-automatic weapons like the Streetsweeper. But he readily conceded in an interview that the NRA's image has become a handicap in state capitols around the country.
LaPierre said the problem began several years ago when the NRA made a public relations blunder and allowed itself to be painted as a defender of the so-called "cop-killer" bullets.
LaPierre contended the NRA didn't really want to fight the ban of such bullets, only to try to rewrite the proposed legislation so it wouldn't cover hunting ammunition as well. Nevertheless, he said, the PR damage was done.
For evidence, he pointed to the just-concluded Virginia General Assembly, which saw an unusual coalition of urban Democrats and suburban Republicans band together to pass a gun-control bill that proponents have called one of the strongest in the country.
It was difficult for the NRA to derail the push for a gun bill for two reasons, said LaPierre, a Roanoke native who got his start in politics in the 1970s as an aide to Del. Victor Thomas, D-Roanoke.
First, the NRA's image as "a bunch of extremist crazies" made the organization itself a target for some legislators. "They're seeing us as part of the problem," LaPierre said. "This has become about beating the NRA and not about stopping crime."
Second, LaPierre said, legislators were more interested in scoring political points than actually attacking crime. He said some Republican legislators even admitted to him privately that they knew the one-gun-a-month limit would do little to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, but they needed to be seen as "doing something" about crime. "To them, it was all about politics and that's the most frustrating thing to me," LaPierre said.
The biggest problem with the one-gun-a-month limit isn't that it'll crimp law-abiding citizens, LaPierre said. It's that the bill does virtually nothing to crimp criminals.
Legislators, he said, "keep forgetting these are criminals," who will find a way around any law. "They're all charged up they've beaten the NRA on this and what have they accomplished? They've accomplished nothing. They've spent a whole legislative session doing something that really doesn't affect our members and doesn't affect criminals. They've gotten themselves all worked up over this and its meaningless."
The real way to combat crime, LaPierre said, is to take on a "rotten" criminal justice system in which too many criminals don't serve time, and those that do often get released early.
LaPierre said that's why he's spent the past year, since he became the NRA's chief executive officer, refocusing the organization and setting up a "multimillion-dollar" campaign to push for tougher crime laws.
"Every police officer who walks the street will tell you the biggest problem is the repeat violent criminal that no one is keeping in jail," LaPierre said. "We are going to go into all 50 states with laws that build prisons, hire additional prosecutors, reform the bail laws, stop the early release and start prosecuting criminals that commit gun crimes and we are going to lead the charge to put violent criminals in jail and build a national coalition that will make that possible. No one else is doing it. I've had a bunch of senators on Capitol Hill tell me `Wayne, we know what the problem is, but we don't have the will to do it.' Well, we're going to give 'em the will."
That way, LaPierre said, the NRA will come to be seen as a "mainstream" organization.
"I hope it changes the NRA's image by letting people focus on what the real problem is and seeing we are part of the solution and not the problem," LaPierre said. "I don't look at it as a cynical `change the image' thing. I want to bring the problem to them and have them see us as part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. Because what's going on right now, they're seeing us as part of the problem, but they're not getting a solution."