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Liberals try to claim Florida shooter was “trained by the NRA”
Hot Air.com ^ | February 17, 2018 | JAZZ SHAW

Posted on 02/17/2018 5:42:34 PM PST by Kaslin

ince the Florida school shooting happened in an election year, liberals have been working valiantly to somehow tie the National Rifle Association to the tragedy. This isn’t a new phenomenon, but some of them seemed to think they’d struck gold when they found out about a marksmanship program operated at the school which the shooter previously belonged to. It turns out that the program received a grant to partially fund it from the NRA, leading to some hot take headlines which are melting down laptop and phone screens today. These include, “Nikolas Cruz was reportedly on an NRA-funded rifle team in high school” along with “The Florida gunman’s classmates just revealed the NRA paid for his marksmanship training.” Perhaps my favorite was, “Florida Shooter Competed On NRA Marksmanship Team.”

And the tweets… oh, boy, were there tweets.

The NRA donated $10,000 to help train the Parkland shooting suspect to use a rifle https://t.co/pilyHhWS0q pic.twitter.com/tk0ZLwsCnh

— ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) February 17, 2018

That’s really amazing. What was the NRA doing hanging around at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School? Well… it turns out they weren’t. Those headlines are a bit more overblown than the way the Associated Press describes the situation, which is at least a bit more honest. The “rifle team” in question was actually a marksmanship program. And it wasn’t run by the NRA, but by the Army Junior ROTC. And the “rifles” were air-powered pellet guns. They did, however, receive a grant to operate the program and purchase equipment.

The troubled teen authorities say killed 17 people at a Florida high school excelled in an air-rifle marksmanship program supported by a grant from the National Rifle Association Foundation, part of a multimillion-dollar effort by the gun group to support youth shooting clubs and other programs.

Nikolas Cruz, 19, was wearing a maroon shirt with the logo from the Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when he was arrested Wednesday shortly after the shooting. Former JROTC cadets told The Associated Press that Cruz was a member of the small varsity marksmanship team that trained together after class and traveled to other area schools to compete.

The honest description would have been to say that the Army was running a training program, but I suppose that doesn’t make for as good of a fundraising letter. Getting these programs off the ground isn’t cheap, however, so they accepted a grant from the NRA, just as hundreds of schools across thirty states do every year. The NRA also offers grants to local gun clubs, Boy Scout troops and churches. One of their educational outreach programs where they actually do go to schools is for safety training, where Eddie Eagle helps teach younger children to never touch guns without parental supervision and to “run away” from them to avoid danger.

At Marjory Stoneman Douglas they used the NRA funds to supplement the small amount of money the JROTC gets from the U.S. Army. They used the NRA grant to purchase things such as safety glasses and Kevlar curtains. And just to stress this again, they use air rifles, similar to the ones you see the Olympic athletes firing in the biathlon.

So this isn’t “an NRA program.” And the NRA didn’t “train the shooter.” But don’t let a little thing like facts stand in your way when you’re trying to do some fundraising.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: army; banglist; florida; floridahighschool; jrotc; libmyths; massshootings; nikolascruz; nra; rotc; schoolshooting
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To: Squantos
Yes for fire safety reasons the doors are unlocked from the inside but locked from allowing access from the outside.

Every day; those doors FLY open and kids pour out by the DOZENS; heading for buses.

What a MASS of young humanity clustered together.


TOO heaven!!

41 posted on 02/18/2018 4:15:45 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Arm_Bears

?

WHAT shooting??


42 posted on 02/18/2018 4:16:32 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Kaslin

We need to learn just who the msm/drivebys are.They are not a fair and balanced form of media.Never have been never will be.They are an arm of the left as Rush stated on Friday.We need to remember that.Little more than spokesmen for the hard left.


43 posted on 02/18/2018 4:20:20 AM PST by rodguy911 (Home of the free because of the brave! MAGA!!)
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To: Kaslin
Friday I had lunch with a mixed crowd of conservatives and liberals,most former elected county or city officials. On the left it was all about guns and how if we were disarmed we would be so much easier to manage. Like in Cuba or Venezuela or some other left oriented disaster of a country.

One leftists kept asking what it would take for us to surrender our guns concentrating on the AR15 which is the current dem chatting point.

When asked why gun control was so perfect a solution considering the dem model of Chicago they invariably had to change the subject and would always refuse to answer any question pertaining to Chicago.We got the message.....they have nothing and are once again on the wrong side of history.

44 posted on 02/18/2018 4:26:10 AM PST by rodguy911 (Home of the free because of the brave! MAGA!!)
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To: Squantos

I heard Pags interview that young girl. WOW! Just WOW!


45 posted on 02/18/2018 4:32:29 AM PST by mad_as_he$$ (We need common sense FBI reform.)
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To: napscoordinator

Did you read the OP?


46 posted on 02/18/2018 4:34:10 AM PST by mad_as_he$$ (We need common sense FBI reform.)
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To: mad_as_he$$

Sad she had to tell such a story ...... she did well in the interview considering. Stay Safe !


47 posted on 02/18/2018 4:49:39 AM PST by Squantos (Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet ...)
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To: rodguy911

“Any government that would attempt to disarm its people is despotic; and any people that would submit to it deserve to be slaves!” - Stephen F. Austin, 1835

“A government that fears arms in the hands of its people should also fear the rope!” - General Nathan Bedford Forrest, CSA


48 posted on 02/18/2018 5:12:36 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie
😹🍿🍻🇺🇸. You must not have included your white privilege card ID number. Shame on you. ✌️
49 posted on 02/18/2018 8:31:39 AM PST by rktman (Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
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To: Ronniesque

You’ve got it. The ILA is the political arm of the NRA.


50 posted on 02/18/2018 11:59:29 AM PST by TigersEye (13 Russian Facebook trolls ... and a Siberian partridge in a Russian Olive tree.)
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To: ExTexasRedhead

51 posted on 02/22/2018 8:04:43 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: Kaslin

.22 LR is a pyrotechnic round, of many flavors...


52 posted on 02/22/2018 8:12:59 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: Kaslin

Kevlar curtains? Is that what the ROTC student threw over others?


53 posted on 02/22/2018 8:16:44 PM PST by pnz1 (#IMNOTWITHHER)
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To: Kaslin

If I’m not mistaken, Olympic biathlon competitors use real .22s, not air rifles.


54 posted on 02/22/2018 8:22:21 PM PST by Bob (Damn, the democrats haven't been this upset since Republicans freed their slaves.)
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To: Bob

Apparently like >$10,000 22LRs.


55 posted on 02/22/2018 9:11:19 PM PST by Paladin2
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