A Little Frightening': MSNBC 'Morning Joe' Panelist Thinks NRA Meeting Was 'Inciting a Riot

(Photo: MSNBC)

MSNBC's "Morning Joe" attempted to cover the highlights of the annual NRA meeting Monday, and the conclusions were what you might expect from the left-leaning network.  One member of the panel went so far as to say the meeting's leadership was "inciting a riot" and deliberately "[intending] to mislead."

Co-host Mika Brzezinski opened the segment: "Using words like 'battle,' 'war,' and 'stand and fight,' leaders of the NRA are focusing in on the 2014 elections using the ongoing debate over gun legislation as a backdrop to counter what the group's spokesman calls 'a historic attack on the Second Amendment.'"

She then played clips of NRA CEO and Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre speaking of the hunt for the Boston bombers, saying "frightened citizens sheltered in place with no means to defend themselves or their families from whatever might come crashing through their door. How many Bostonians wish they had a gun two weeks ago?"  

"If he wants to talk about frightened citizens, he's the frightened citizen," MSNBC panelist Mike Barnicle retorted.  "No one in Watertown or Boston or Cambridge was sitting behind their doors frightened as Wayne LaPierre points out.  He is the frightened citizen. He is frightened of losing what power he has." 

After Barnicle said "most people" he knows in Boston were "perfectly happy" to let the authorities take care of the situation, an apparent effort to distinguish the NRA attendees from its leadership began.

"The folks who showed up at the NRA convention are probably really good people, family people, people who love this country," Brzezinski said, adding after a moment, "I think that's fair to say."  

Mark Halperin interjected that, historically, the NRA thinks "showing weakness" isn't a good idea and that "none" of the speeches he saw "talked about compromise or bringing the country together." 

Barnicle then said there is certainly "no crime" in the events of the meeting, but concluded: "There is a deliberate intent to mislead on the part of the NRA leadership, to mislead and to incite to riot, almost, the members of the NRA."

At that point Willie Geist reiterated that the panel shouldn't speak of NRA members as if they were a "strange tribe of people from a foreign country," before further isolating LaPierre.

"I don't think [NRA members] are represented well by Wayne LaPierre," he stated.  "You've got that big group of people there who care about their rights, who care about their guns, but he's not speaking on behalf of them because when you talk about things like universal background checks, most [gun owners] supported that, and he is out saying 'they are coming for your guns.'" 

"He's inciting a riot," Barnicle repeated. 

Watch the complete video to see the rest of the segment, which includes comments about Sarah Palin's speech, via MSNBC:

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