NRA's LaPierre: wonk with million-dollar megaphone

(AP) NRA’s LaPierre: wonk with million-dollar megaphone
By NANCY BENAC
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
Wayne LaPierre would just as soon read a book as fire a gun.

That’s right, the National Rifle Association’s fire-breathing defender of gun rights is more academic than marksman.

Joseph Tartaro of the pro-gun Second Amendment Foundation calls LaPierre a “police wonk” who’s “more professorial than you would think.”

Former NRA spokesman John Aquilino says LaPierre is best described as “an absent-minded professor.”

A professor, that is, with a million-dollar megaphone and a well-honed ability to dish apocalyptic warnings about a tyrannical government angling to grab people’s firearms.

For decades, LaPierre has been serving up heated us-vs.-them rhetoric to rally the NRA faithful. Usually it works. Sometimes it backfires