 After a week of media silence following the school shooting in Florida, the National Rifle Association has gone on the offensive in its first public response to the massacre, pushing back against law enforcement officials, the media, gun-control advocates and calls for stricter gun laws from the teenage survivors of the attack. [Florida high school students demand change to gun laws at boisterous rally] 
 
 “They don’t care about our schoolchildren,” LaPierre said Thursday morning near the start of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md. “They want to make all of us less free.” 
 
 LaPierre also restated his belief that more armed security would stop school shootings, echoing Trump, while calling on parents and local authorities to beef up security on campuses. Pence said he would "pray for God's wisdom that all of us in positions of authority might find a way to come together with American solutions to confront and end this evil in our time." Since the rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, media coverage has been dominated by the attack’s survivors, who responded with a push of furious activism unseen after previous mass shootings. The survivors called for new gun restrictions in a rally Wednesday in Tallahassee, the Florida capital, and then reiterated the pleas that night at a town hall hosted by CNN and attended by lawmakers and Dana Loesch, an NRA spokeswoman. NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch, a favorite of Tea Party activists, spoke before LaPierre and said major media organizations cover mass shootings based on race and ratings. But I am saying that you love the ratings. Crying white mothers are ratings gold.” 
 
 [Dana Loesch, the NRA’s brash spokeswoman, dials back the rage at CNN town hall] 
 
 Loesch questioned why there was a nationally televised town hall after one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern American history but no similar event for “thousands of grieving black mothers in Chicago every weekend.” 
 
 During her appearance the previous night, Loesch sought to direct the discussion toward who should be able to obtain firearms, highlighting numerous red flags in the alleged gunman’s past, including concerns from school officials and a warning ignored by the FBI. “This individual was nuts.” 
 
 Speaking the following morning, Loesch also said she condemned those at the FBI who fumbled warnings about the shooter. Acting FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich said that while it was "a tragedy" that a tip about the gunman, Nikolas Cruz, was never passed along to local investigators, the FBI is determined to fix the problem. Critics of the NRA dismissed its comments, which Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called “pathetic, out of touch ideas.” Some gun-control groups also questioned why the NRA was being given such a prominent platform in the debate, both by CNN and in Trump’s remarks. LaPierre said he was “horrified” by the Parkland tragedy, criticizing what he called “opportunists” who would “exploit tragedy for political gain.” He invoked his own comment following the 2012 massacre of 20 children and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., saying Thursday that “to stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun.” 
 
 During his speech, LaPierre decried schools as “gun-free zones,” though Douglas had an armed officer on the campus at the time of the attack — who Israel has said did not enter the building or confront the shooter as people were being killed. Calling schools "wide open, soft targets for anyone bent on mass murder," LaPierre said that banks, jewelry stores, movie stars and politicians are "all more protected than our children." Shortly before LaPierre spoke, Trump tweeted a message of support for him and others at the NRA as “Great People and Great American Patriots” who he said would “do the right thing.” 
 
 What many people don’t understand, or don’t want to understand, is that Wayne, Chris and the folks who work so hard at the @NRA are Great People and Great American Patriots. They love our Country and will do the right thing. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" 1/2 — Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) February 22, 2018 
 
 LaPierre's remarks came the day after President Donald Trump and his aides outlined plans to combat mass shootings: Tighten the national background-check system, raise the age for buying semi-automatic weapons to 21, and allow some teachers and school officials to carry firearms on campuses. Contrast with Rubio 
 
 LaPierre's speech comes just a day after Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who has an A+ rating from the NRA, announced he was opposed to arming teachers and was in favor of raising the age limit from 18 to 21 on individuals purchasing semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15.
– "Many in legacy media love mass shootings," NBC News quotes NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch as saying Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference. "You love the ratings. Crying white mothers are ratings gold." A week after 17 people were killed at a school shooting in Florida, the NRA went on the defensive in speeches, videos, and statements targeting gun-control advocates, Democrats, the media, and even some ideas put forth by President Trump, the Washington Post reports. In his own speech at CPAC, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre warned citizens to be "frightened" of any Democratic election victory. "What they want is more restrictions on the law-abiding," CNN quotes LaPierre as saying. "If they seize power ... our American freedoms could be lost and our country will be changed forever." Following in Trump's footsteps, LaPierre called for more armed security in schools, including arming teachers. "Evil walks among us," he said, adding, "God help us if we don’t harden our schools." However, the president has also suggested increasing the age to purchase semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21 in opposition to the NRA. An NRA spokesperson says such a law would deprive young people "of their constitutional right to self-protection." LaPierre spent most of his time at CPAC railing against what he says is a "socialist" agenda pushed by Democrats in the wake of the Parkland shooting. "Opportunists wasted not one second to exploit tragedy for political gain," he said. Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer responded: "The NRA is once again spewing pathetic, out of touch ideas, blaming everything but guns."