Putting armed guards in America’s schools — an idea proposed by President Bill Clinton following the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, “actually is one that has a bipartisan background,” Grover Norquist said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
The National Rifle Association member said the backlash CEO Wayne LaPierre has received following the Dec. 21 press conference calling for the measure was unwarranted.
“This is an idea that seems fairly reasonable,” Norquist said. “When presented by Bill Clinton, you know, New Yorkers didn’t attack it.”
LaPierre has been excoriated by the press, politicians and the parents of the dead for a “tone-deaf” response to the tragic murders of 26 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
“The gun-control advocates, for a long time, have jumped on every tragedy and tried to exploit it in unhelpful ways,” Norquist said. “I think the NRA did well to hold off for awhile in responding. We ought to calm down and not take tragedies like this, crimes like this, and use them for political purposes.
"President\Obama’s been president for four years. If he thought that some gun control would solve this problem, he should have been pushing it four years ago. He didn’t.”
On the topic of the looming fiscal cliff and the stalled congressional negotiations surrounding it, Norquist said the answer lies in a budget written and presented by former vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan and passed by the House.
“The Republicans actually passed a budget,” the president of Americans for Tax Reform said. “They got re-elected having done that. The Senate got re-elected because they never voted on anything. It’s the only way they were able to get re-elected.”
He said Obama is pulling a fast one on the American people by having them believe tax increases on the wealthy will solve the fiscal crisis, when tax increases on the middle class are right around the corner.
“Ninety percent of the tax increases to pay for Obamacare conveniently, interestingly took effect…after the president got himself safely reelected,” Norquist said. “He wants you to talk about taxing the rich because he’s busy socking it to the middle class.”
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