Florida School Shooting: NRA's Dana Loesch Defends Guns, Blames 'Flawed System'

Even since the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the survivors and victims’ families have done everything to get their voices heard to make sure such an incident does not occur again. In the process, they also called out the National Rifles Association (NRA), the most outspoken organization advocating of the second amendment.

Almost 7,000 people turned up at the CNN town hall in Florida on Wednesday night to see survivors and victims’ families demand answers and solutions to the gun violence they faced. Among those who faced the heat from the crowd included NRA’s spokesperson Dana Loesch.

When Emma Gonzalez, one of the students of the Parkland school, asked Loesch whether she believed it should be difficult for people to possess semi-automatic weapons and bump stocks, she responded by saying, “I don't believe that this insane monster should have ever been able to obtain a firearm, ever. … I do not think that he should have gotten his hands on any kind of weapon," while referring to Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old shooter who killed 17 people.

"This individual was nuts, and I — nor the millions of people that I represent as a part of this organization that I'm here speaking for — none of us support people who are crazy, who are a danger to themselves, who are a danger to others, getting their hands on a firearm," Loesch added. “How was he able to pass a background check? He was able to pass a background check because we have a system that’s flawed. The Sutherland Springs murderer was able to pass a background check because the Air Force did not report that record.”

She then went on to point out the failure of the states to submit convictions to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which resulted in dangerous and mentally ill people from obtaining guns. This was a point she reiterated at least twice during the town hall.

However, her answers were not received well by the crowd, which kept yelling at her, till Gonzalez asked them to be quiet. The teenager then proceeded to interrupt Loesch with her original question, to which the NRA spokeswoman repeated the organization's stance, which was to be open to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives considering a ban on bump stocks.

While answering another question about raising the legal age to purchase a weapon from 18 to 21 , she fell back to the much-used rhetoric of safety and protection for women. Loesch talked about how she lived alone as a 20-year-old and how a gun would have made her feel safe at the time.

"This is what I'm talking about in terms of prevention and making sure that people who are dangerous should not have access to firearms, without punishing law-abiding Americans who want to be able to have that same right to defend themselves," she said.

Her usage of words such as “nuts,” “insane” and “crazy” to describe a mentally ill person did not sit well with her argument that more focus on mental illness might be a way forward.

Right to the end, she continued to insist she was fighting for the survivors of the Parkland shooting, which also did not go down well with the crowd. So, when Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said, "You're not standing up for them until you say, 'I want less weapons,'" his comment was met with a standing applause.