Amid the March For Our Lives protests on Saturday, with massive demonstrations in support of gun control taking place in cities and towns throughout the United States, the NRA responded harshly.
On Saturday, NRATV host Colion Noir described the demonstrations as a “carnival,“ and claimed it’s “laughable” that voices supporting more gun proliferation in schools weren’t being listened to. He also attacked the students of Stoneman Douglas High School who’ve been organizing for gun reform, implying that they’re enjoying the “spotlight,” and would otherwise have to go “back to their homework.”
“You want to save innocent lives? Take the millions of dollars going to this carnival of a march, and hire armed guards in schools all over this country,” Noir said. “But then these kids would have to shrink from the spotlight and go back to their homework. And the forces funding them would lose the opportunity to further an agenda that’s a million times bigger than the guns.”
Noir concluded the clip by accusing the Parkland students of trying to “burn up the Constitution, and rewrite the parts that [they] don’t like in crayon,” an apparent shot at their youth.
Just days earlier, Noir―whose real name is Collins Iyare Idehen Jr.―drew criticism for an NRATV video in which he combatively claimed that nobody would know the names of the Parkland students if 17 people hadn’t been killed in a mass shooting. Referencing the recent case of a school resource officer named Blaine Gaskill who reportedly helped stop a mass shooting incident in Maryland, Noir needled the teenage Parkland activists.
“I wish a hero like Blaine Gaskill had been at Marjory Douglas High School last month because your classmates would still be alive and no one would know your names, because the media would have completely and utterly ignored your story, the way they ignored his,” Noir said.
The NRA has also attempted to undermine the authenticity and credibility of the rallies, in which hundreds of thousands of Americans participated. In a Facebook video posted on Saturday, the NRA claimed that the marches are “not spontaneous,” and that the Parkland students are being “exploited” by gun-hating billionaires and celebrities.
