Fox News Host Skewers NRA Chief: “That’s Ridiculous and You Know It, Sir”

By Daniel Politi

SLATE

Posted Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013, at 12:21 PM ET

NRA Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre testifies at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence last month
Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

If the National Rifle Association can’t even count on Fox News for a friendly interview, does that mean there's been a shift in the debate? On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace interviewed National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre and wasn’t shy about calling him out on his arguments. The interview got particularly heated when Wallace brought up the controversial advertisement that criticized President Obama for providing armed security for his daughters but opposing armed guards in all schools, reports Talking Points Memo. (Video after the jump.)

"They also face a threat that most children do not face," Wallace said of Obama's daughters.

"Tell that to the people in Newtown," LaPierre responded.

"You really think that the president's children are the same kind of target as every other school child in America?" Wallace said. "That's ridiculous and you know it, sir."

At several points during the interview, LaPierre seemed to have dialed up his paranoia meter to the maximum level, saying the White House wants background checks as a way of tracking citizens. "I think what they'll do is they'll turn this universal [background] check on the law-abiding into a universal registry on law-abiding people," he said. Wallace countered that the White House hadn’t said anything about a universal registry, points out the Hill. "And ObamaCare wasn't a tax until they needed it to be a tax,” LaPierre responded. “I don't think you can trust these people.”

On ABC News, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman said that the current debate about guns has revealed the NRA as an “insane organization,” reports Politico. “They have this vision that we're living in a Mad Max movie and that nothing can be done about it, that America cannot manage unless everybody's prepared to shoot intruders.”