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Trade center bomb echoes after 25 years

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Students return to Florida school where 17 were killed

<p>CHICAGO &#8212; Dana Loesch is the new public face of the National Rifle Association, an organization long associated with older white men.</p><p>At 39, she&#8217;s poised, photogenic and a skilled public speaker, yet she&#8217;s not softening the message of the NRA as it becomes an increasingly active voice in the nation&#8217;s culture wars, with positions on everything from immigration to the media.</p><p>In the aftermath of the shooting deaths of 17 people, mostly students, at a Florida high school, it&#8217;s Loesch who has been the NRA&#8217;s main messenger.</p><p>The NRA dispatched Loesch last week to a CNN town hall, where she was questioned by students and parents from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the site of the Valentine&#8217;s Day shooting. Often brash and combative, Loesch was measured and even-tempered, though she was booed when she left the stage.</p><p>Charlie Sykes, a longtime conservative radio host who has been critical of the NRA, said Loesch&#8217;s skill is communicating with a broad range of Americans while retaining the ultra-conservative base built by Wayne LaPierre, the NRA&#8217;s executive vice president and CEO since 1991.</p><p>&#8220;Imagine Wayne LaPierre sitting in that seat and you realize the significance of Dana,&#8221; Sykes said. &#8220;She can bring the hot sauce without having that persona&#8221; of an angry white man.</p><p>Even before taking over as NRA spokeswoman last year, Loesch had a robust conservative following, cultivated on social media &#8212; she has 765,000 Twitter followers &#8212; and through years of television and radio appearances, including on her own radio program, &#8220;The Dana Show.&#8221;</p><p>The day after the televised town hall, she was back in her more familiar mode, speaking to a far friendlier audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington. Loesch defiantly defended NRA&#8217;s 5 million members, who she said &#8220;will not be gaslighted into thinking that we&#8217;re responsible for a tragedy that we had nothing to do with.&#8221;</p><p>And, her voice dripping with condescension, she addressed journalists from the mainstream media, who she said &#8220;love mass shootings&#8221; because &#8220;crying white mothers are ratings gold.&#8221;</p><p>Her criticism of the media recalled an NRA video last summer in which she attacked The New York Times in a way that some on the right and the left feared could incite violence. In the video, Loesch said NRA members have &#8220;had it&#8221; with the newspaper&#8217;s &#8220;fake news&#8221; and warned: &#8220;Consider this the shot across your proverbial bow. &#8230; In short? We&#8217;re coming for you.&#8221;</p><p>Loesch was back on television Sunday, defending NRA members and arguing against calls to ban semi-automatic weapons like the one used in the Florida school shooting. &#8220;This is not the fault, nor are 5 million innocent law-abiding Americans culpable for this,&#8221; she said on ABC&#8217;s &#8220;This Week.&#8221;</p><p>In response, David Hogg, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, said students were focused on countering Loesch as they campaign for tighter gun laws.</p><p>&#8220;If you listen to her speak, she&#8217;s not really saying anything. She&#8217;s sounding positive and confident and that&#8217;s what she wants the people in the NRA to believe, her 5 million plus members,&#8221; Hogg said on CNN. &#8220;She wants them to think that she&#8217;s on their side, but she&#8217;s not. She&#8217;s actually working with the gun manufacturers.&#8221;</p><p>Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said she was not in the least reassured by Loesch&#8217;s appearance at last week&#8217;s town hall, especially after she attacked the media the following day.</p><p>&#8220;She&#8217;s younger. She&#8217;s a woman and a mom. She&#8217;s television-ready,&#8221; Watts said. &#8220;But her rhetoric is just as radicalized, if not more, than Wayne LaPierre&#8217;s.&#8221;</p><p>Loesch grew up in a blue-collar family in a small Missouri town near St. Louis, reared mainly by her mother after her parents&#8217; divorce. She told The Times that she recalls her grandfather hunting deer and raccoon, but also a night her grandfather stood on the porch with a shotgun to protect her aunt from an estranged husband.</p><p>&#8220;Looking back, I think I always wanted to know that I was safe,&#8221; she told the newspaper for an article published last month.</p><p>Loesch studied journalism at Webster University, but dropped out when she became pregnant with her first son. She soon began writing a blog about motherhood and started her radio program. She later helped found the St. Louis tea party and had stints as a political analyst at Breitbart News Network and The Blaze.</p><p>Loesch, who has said she keeps a handgun near her bed and has a tattoo on her forearm with a reference to a Bible passage calling for Christians to wear holy armor, has never been afraid of being provocative.</p><p>During a 2012 radio show, Loesch said she didn&#8217;t have a problem with Marines who urinated on dead Taliban soldiers, declaring: &#8220;I&#8217;d drop trou and do it too.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Loesch </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/web1_119881866-5c1e6716d3d84949bba1e3e53bd007fd.jpg</photo0><caption0>Loesch </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Tammy Webber</p><p>Associated Press</p></bylineMeta></div>

The new face of gun rights movement