'A Good Friend with a 100-Foot Yacht': Audio Highlights from the NRA Chief’s Testimony (Feat. Shannon Watts)

Objections: With Adam Klasfeld

Breaking a nearly weeklong silence following the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in December 2012, the National Rifle Association’s longtime leader Wayne LaPierre introduced what would become a Second Amendment rallying cry.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre declared in the wake of that mass shooting, which killed 26 people, including 20 children.

More than eight years later, LaPierre’s testimony at the NRA’s bankruptcy trial showed him apparently adopting a different standard for his own safety. LaPierre claimed that he accepted trips on a Hollywood producer's 108-foot yacht named the Illusions after Sandy Hook for “security” reasons. The NRA chief offered the same rationale for flying exclusively by private charter jet, and he defended his receipt of nearly $300,000 in Italian suits from a Beverly Hills Zegna, which the group's longtime public relations Ackerman McQueen bought him for television appearances.

The latest episode of “Objections” features highlights from court-released audio of LaPierre’s blockbuster testimony from a federal bankruptcy court in Dallas, Texas.

For Shannon Watts, the founder of the anti-gun violence group Moms Demand Action, LaPierre's self-described method of protecting his safety is sharply off-message with his organization's line.

"Wayne up here has spent decades and made millions of dollars, saying the only thing that can protect you from danger is a gun, right?" Watts told Law&Crime's podcast "Objections" in an extended interview. "That the 'only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.' Well, apparently in Wayne LaPierre's case, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good friend with a 100-foot yacht."

Waterbury Police Chief Fernando Spagnolo, whose Connecticut city is a less than half-hour drive away from Newtown, reflects on the tragedy. The police chief testified at a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence.

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