National Rifle Association spokeswoman Dana Loesch laid into critics of gun rights during a speech to activists at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, blaming the FBI for dropping the ball in preventing mass shooters from obtaining weapons and accusing the media of trying to capitalize on mass shootings.
“I’ll say it really slowly so all the people on the platform in the back can hear me loud and clear: Many in legacy media love mass shootings,” Loesch said, referring to the media assembled on risers toward the back.
“You guys love it. I’m not saying that you love the tragedy, but I am saying that you love the ratings. Crying white mothers are ratings gold to you and many in the legacy media in the back.”
{mosads}Loesch’s comments come about a week after the deadly mass shooting at a Florida high school. Loesch appeared at a CNN town hall with the Florida community on Wednesday night, including survivors of the shooting, to discuss the tragedy and potential policy responses.
Loesch blasted CNN’s town hall, framing it as a ratings grab by the network and indicative of how the media treats mass shootings.
“There are thousands of grieving black mothers in Chicago every weekend and you don’t see town halls for them. Where’s the CNN town hall for Chicago? Where’s the CNN town hall for sanctuary cities?” she added.
Loesch’s comments represented a break from the group’s silence in the days after the shooting. Returning to the offensive, Loesch won big cheers from the friendly crowd in the hall.
She went on to lay into the FBI for failing to follow procedures that she said would have denied background checks of various mass shooters and prevent the crimes.
“My condemnation is for those at the FBI — I know there are good FBI agents there — who dropped the ball eight separate times with catastrophic consequences,” she said, referring to recent mass shootings.
“[Former FBI Director] James Comey, when he wasn’t busy taking directions from [former Attorney General] Loretta Lynch as to what to call Hillary Clinton’s investigation or writing self-aggrandizing memoirs, said that they made a mistake. Maybe if you politicized your agency less and did your job more, we wouldn’t have those problems.”
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