MSNBC’s Ali Velshi Decries NRA to Former Lobbyist: They Are ‘Not Good Players’
MSNBC host Ali Velshi decried the National Rifle Association during an interview with a former lobbyist from the gun rights organization and a high school student from Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
The news anchor claimed the NRA’s “not good players” in the ongoing national debate over gun control, saying the group should be pushing for common sense laws to prevent further mass shootings like the one that took 17 lives at the Florida high school on Feb. 14.
“As I talk to these students since the day I was down there,” Velshi said. “not many of them tell me that they have an issue with the Second Amendment or that they’d like to see the Second Amendment go away or they’d like to see people’s guns taken away. They literally don’t want to be fearful in school… I would think that is a message that pro-Second Amendment gun owners can get behind.”
Richard Feldman, former lobbyist for the NRA, disagreed with Velshi that the organization should be stepping up to engage in the ongoing conversation.
“The NRA isn’t the problem. The guns per se aren’t the problem,” Feldman said. “The problem is we’ve been very unsuccessful in this country focusing on the policies that will keep guns out of the hands of those people who we are all in agreement shouldn’t have them.”
Velshi jumped in to say, “The NRA are not good players in this thing. Good law-abiding gun owners are. They don’t do anything wrong.”
“I don’t know anyone at the NRA who shot up a school, who’s killed people. Gun owners in this country by and large are the most peaceful people out there,” Feldman responded.
Suzanna Barna, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, told Velshi she and her peers were committed to pushing for gun control with the upcoming March For Our Lives demonstration — with or without the help of the NRA.
“Realistically, the NRA has money, and they have members,” Barna said. “But if you think about it, for the past 20 years now we have seen mass shootings, specifically in schools and I think that — that our country can’t stand for that any more. The fact that we are the only developed nation that has this problem of mass shootings is ridiculous. It’s a terrible image to have in terms of the whole world. And I think that we can make change even though the NRA is so powerful.”
Watch a clip of the debate above, via MSNBC.
[image via screengrab]
—
