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More than a year after the death of black motorist — and lawful gun owner — Philando Castile at the hands of a Minnesota police officer, the National Rifle Association finally has something to say. NRA representative Dana Loesch addressed Castile's killing during a contentious appearance Monday on CNN, confirming her comments were made on the organization's behalf.
Castile's death was "absolutely awful" and "a terrible tragedy that could have been avoided," she said before pivoting to a discussion of NRA programming:
I don't agree with every single decision that comes out from courtrooms of America. There are a lot of variables in this particular case, and there were a lot of things that I wish would have been done differently. Do I believe that Philando Castile deserved to lose his life over his [traffic] stop? I absolutely do not. I also think that this is why we have things like NRA Carry Guard, not only to reach out to the citizens to go over what to do during stops like this, but also to work with law enforcement so that they understand what citizens are experiencing when they go through stops like this.
As eyewitness testimony and dashcam footage have confirmed, Castile did know "what to do during stops like this;" he calmly informed the officer about his firearm and explained he was not attempting to access it.
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Loesch recently appeared in an NRA ad calling conservatives to fight critics of President Trump with "the clenched fist of truth." Critics argued the clip's dramatic "us vs. them" rhetoric was a coded call to violence or at least antagonism of racial tensions.
Watch an excerpt of Loesch's comments below. Bonnie Kristian
A post shared by Women's March (@womensmarch) on Jul 9, 2017 at 2:07pm PDT
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
