NRA: Navy Yard Lacked 'Good Guys With Guns'

The NRA's Wayne LaPierre is taking on renewed debate over gun control in wake of the Navy Yard shooting, telling NBC today that the "outrage" of "the elite media and the politicians trying to stir this toward firearms ... ought to be placed on an unprotected naval base. On a criminal justice system in Chicago that doesn't even enforce the federal gun laws when we could dramatically cut violence, on a mental health system that is completely broken, on a check system that is a complete joke in terms of stopping the bad guys." A further rundown of his comments, as per Politico:

• "The whole country knows the problem was there weren't enough good guys with guns. When the good guys with guns got there, it stopped."
• The mental health system is broken down, LaPierre says, and people like Aaron Alexis "need to be committed, and if they're committed they're not at the Naval Yard. So the Aurora shooter in Colorado gets checked, and is cleared. The Tucson shooter gets checked and gets cleared. Aaron Alexis goes through the federal and state check and gets cleared."

Elsewhere on the Sunday dial, also as per Politico:

• Joe Manchin on whether he would renew his failed gun control effort: "Not unless there’s a movement. I’m not gonna go out there and just beat the drum for the sake of beating the drum. There has to be people willing to move off the position they've taken."
• Henry Kissenger on Syria: "There could be quite a good outcome because if we get the chemical weapons, it then becomes a basis for a transition in Syria that leads to relative peace. Then at the end of the day, however tortuously we arrived at this conclusion, it will have served the interest of the world."
• Nancy Pelosi on GOP demands for spending cuts: "The cupboard is bare. There's no more cuts to make. We all want to reduce the deficit. Put everything on the table, review it, but you cannot have any more cuts just for the sake of cuts. Right now you’re taking trophies."
• Claire McCaskill on a potential government shutdown: "I don't think in America we should throw tantrums when we lose elections and threaten to shut down the government and refuse to pay the bills. The American people had a choice last November. They had a choice between someone who said repeal ObamaCare, and President Obama."

(More US Navy Yard stories.)