March 25, 2018

The Parkland Students Went on Fox News and Perfectly Explained Why the NRA Is Wrong

“They’re fear mongers. They want to sell weapons by exploiting people’s fears.”

Cameron Kasky, a survivor of the February 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School, appears on Fox News to discuss the #MarchForOurLives./Fox News

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Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Washington, DC on Saturday to protest gun violence and call for stricter gun laws. The March For Our Lives was organized by student survivors of the February 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, several of whom have become prominent leaders of a new wave of activism around gun control in the wake of the shooting.

Two of the students, Delaney Tarr and Cameron Kasky, appeared on Fox News Sunday to lay out what they sought to accomplish with yesterday’s march. The interview’s most striking moment came, however, when one of the students slammed the NRA in response to a question about the student’s true agenda. Fox’s Chris Wallace asked Kasky to respond to a clip of one of his classmates seemingly accusing supporters of the march of wanting to take guns away from law-abiding gun owners during an interview that aired yesterday on Fox. “The NRA wants people to think that,” Kasky said. “They’re fear mongers. They want to sell weapons by exploiting people’s fears. So the second we want to put common sense regulations on these assault weapons, the NRA will say ‘They are trying to steal every single one of your guns.’ And people believe them. Fortunately, the majority of the American people see past this.”

Fox News released a new poll on Sunday that backs up Kasky, with a majority of Americans supporting enhanced gun control measures, such as universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons.

Earlier in the interview, Kasky and Tarr slammed Donald Trump for seemingly bowing to the NRA in the aftermath of the Douglass shooting. Tarr noted that the president endorsed gun control measures immediately after the shooting, but backed away following a subsequent meeting with NRA leadership. “To call it a coincidence seems like a bit of a stretch,” Tarr said.

You can watch the full interview below.

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This is the rubber-meets-road moment: the early days in our first fundraising drive since we took a big swing and merged with CIR to bring fearless investigative reporting to the internet, radio, video, and everywhere else that people need an antidote to lies and propaganda.

Donations have started slow, and we hope that explaining, level-headedly, why your support really is everything for our reporting will make a difference. Learn more in “Less Dreading, More Doing,” or in this 2:28 video about our merger (that literally just won an award), and please pitch in if you can right now.

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