NRA’s Dana Loesch claims student walkouts were to honor dead

NRA Spokeswoman Dana Loesch brushed off the estimated one million students who left their classrooms in protest this week, asserting not all of them support gun safety legislation.

On the heels of Wednesday’s nationwide student walkout, Loesch dismissed the political side of the movement sparked by the Valentine’s Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in which 17 people died.

“You can memorialize the lives lost, but that does not mean every single person that went out supports gun control,” she said Thursday morning on Fox & Friends.

Loesch emphasized many of the people who left their schools did so to honor those killed in the violent attack in Florida. Still, it mostly turned out to be a political event that was trying to “exploit” the recent tragedy as well as place blame President Trump, she said.

More than 3,000 protests and demonstrations kicked off at 10 a.m. Wednesday and then ended 17 minutes later — each minute intended to commemorate each victim gunned down at the Parkland high school.

The event was primarily organized by the student survivors of the deadly attack.

“Students and allies are organizing the national school walkout to demand Congress pass legislation to keep us safe from gun violence at our schools, on our streets and in our homes and places of worship,” according to the walkout event page.

Loesch during the television appearance also took aim at local and federal law enforcement for their handling of shooter Nikolas Cruz.

FBI Director Deputy Director David Bowdich on Wednesday said he did not know why an “explicit tip” regarding the 19-year-old suspect was not passed along to local authorities, who have also been weathering their own controversies.

Several Broward County Sheriff’s deputies are under investigation for their response to the Parkland massacre after it was alleged that they remained outside the school while the shooting unfolded. What’s more, records obtained by CNN revealed the Sheriff’s office received 45 calls over the last decade pertaining to Cruz and his brother.

“The President wasn’t the one down in Parkland not paying attention to the 45 calls nor were any law-abiding gun owners who are NRA members,” Loesch said.