'No one would know your names': NRA TV host slammed the Parkland kids ahead of the March for Our Lives rallies
- An NRATV host disparaged the Parkland shooting survivors before and during the March for Our Lives protests, saying they are only relevant because people at their school died.
- He also criticized the students' age as a disqualifier for talking about gun measures.
- Colion Noir made an allusion to the Black Panthers in defending the NRA's stance on guns, as well.
An NRATV host levied a fresh set of attacks against the Parkland, Florida shooting survivors ahead of Saturday's March for Our Lives protest.
Host Colion Noir, whose real name is Collins Iyare Idehen Jr., said in a video put out by the National Rifle Association on Thursday that the shooting survivors rallying for gun control measures are only relevant because of the horrific deaths of their classmates.
"To all the kids from Parkland getting ready to use your First Amendment to attack everyone else's Second Amendment at your march on Saturday, I wish a hero like Blaine Gaskill had been at Marjory Douglas High School last month, because your classmates would still be alive and no one would know your names, because the media would have completely and utterly ignored your story, the way they ignored his," Noir said.
Noir was referencing the story of a Blaine Gaskill, a 34-year-old armed sheriff's deputy assigned to Great Mills High School in Maryland, who stopped a shooting there this week in under a minute by engaging the gunman. Gaskill's story was contrasted with that of deputy Scot Peterson in the Florida shooting, who was also armed but failed to pursue suspected shooter Nikolas Cruz as he went on a rampage that killed 17 people.
Gaskill's story has received mainstream news attention this week for a number of major outlets, including Business Insider, The New York Times, and CNN.
Noir sharply criticized the Parkland shooting survivors ahead of the series of marches they helped organize this weekend, which drew crowds of hundreds of thousands of people in cities across the US.
"They're running Season 5 of their gun-control reality show, featuring the freshest cast of characters yet in their modern march on Washington - except this time for less freedom," he said. "These kids ought to be marching against their own hypocritical belief structure."
Noir's attacks on the Parkland survivors are but the latest in a series of attacks on the fiery and controversial activists, which have included conspiracy theories that some of the students like David Hogg are "crisis actors" trained to push a gun control agenda. There is no evidence to support such claims.
In another video posted to Facebook on the day of the nationwide rallies, Noir implicitly attacked Hogg's and his fellow students' young age as a disqualifier for their activism.
"From where I'm standing, it looks like a march to burn the Constitution and rewrite the parts that they don't like in crayon," Noir said.
Questionable comments about race and gun laws
In the same video, Noir, who is African-American, made some bizarre claims about race and gun rights.
Responding to a claim made by Hogg over the weekend that not enough black voices are featured in the gun control debate, Noir seemed to praise Malcolm X and the Black Panther movement - liberal activists who stood at the opposite end from the conservative base the NRA is a part of.
"Who the hell gave David Hogg the authority to put on his white man's burden costume to save me from myself by marching to restrict my right to own a gun that at one point I wasn't considered human enough to own?" Noir said.
"I'm fighting for the same rights Malcolm X, MLK, and the Black Panthers fought for, but because he's a white boy talking about white privilege it's OK for him to march on Washington to restrict your freedom," he added.
Racism against black self defense during the black power era actually inspired strict gun control laws in states like California.
Meanwhile, the NRA has often stood up in defense of people like George Zimmerman, who shot Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, in Florida in 2012.
The NRA was also among the groups that supported repealing open-carry laws in California in the 1960s in response to the prevalence of Black Panther organizations.
In the wake of attacks on him and his friends like this one, Hogg has taken a tough stance on his critics - even addresssing NRA members directly about spokeswoman Dana Loesch.
"Is she actually saying anything, or is that just a tone to distract the American public and distract her NRA members from the fact that she's not serving them? She is serving the gun manufacturers," Hogg said on ABC's "This Week" last month. "She's not serving the people of the NRA, because the people that are joining the NRA, 99.9% of them are amazing people that just want to be safe, responsible gun owners. And I fully can support that."