As mass shootings continue unabated, NC Lt. Gov. Robinson cozies up to gun lobby | Opinion

As communities in Louisville, Nashville and across the country grapple with the too-familiar horror of gun violence, North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson will be cozying up to the gun lobby.

Robinson is slated to appear again at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting, delivering the keynote address Friday at a luncheon and auction held by the NRA Women’s Leadership Forum. The event website describes Robinson as “one of the Second Amendment’s most passionate defenders,” noting that he is a member of the NRA’s board of directors.

The event boasts a virtual silent auction, in which participants can bid on semiautomatic assault rifles — the kind of gun used in the Louisville shooting and many others — as well as other types of firearms. That’s right: for a starting bid of just $900, you, too, could own an AR-15!

This appearance, of course, is expected behavior from Robinson, who has remained fervent in his support for gun rights since the start of his political career. Less than 24 hours after a gunman killed 10 people last year in Buffalo, he bragged about owning AR-15 rifles to use “in case the government gets too big for its britches,” drawing rare criticism from Gov. Roy Cooper.

Just a few days after 21 people were gunned down at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Robinson was one of several guest speakers at the NRA’s 2022 annual meeting in Houston. He said he wept upon hearing the news of what happened in Uvalde, but it didn’t deter him from attending the meeting. In an address, Robinson accused “leftist politicians” of wanting to “tap dance on the graves of these children to disarm the people of this nation.”

All that, and he still has the gall to offer up empty thoughts and prayers when a mass shooting occurs. In the wake of last month’s shooting in Nashville, in which three students and three adults were killed at a private Christian school, Robinson said in a statement that the “people are calling on us to act.”

“Kids should be able to feel safe, and parents should not fear dropping their kids off, wondering if it will be the last time they see them,” Robinson’s statement said.

Robinson is expected to announce that he is running for governor later this month, and he leads in early Republican primary polls. Robinson has also received campaign support from the NRA — the NRA Political Victory Fund spent more than $82,000 to get Robinson elected in 2020, WRAL reported.

North Carolinians don’t want Robinson’s crocodile tears. What they want is a leader brave enough to stand up to the gun lobby. Robinson says we need to make schools safer, yet he refuses to do anything to protect children from the weapons that are killing them. Although a majority of North Carolinians support stricter gun laws, Robinson has remained firmly opposed, speaking out against common-sense safety measures such as universal background checks.

Just this week, a 14-year-old girl was killed and five others were injured after a shooting in Goldsboro. It’s the kind of story that we hear often — yet another tragedy that perhaps could have been prevented.

How can we ever truly ensure our kids are safe when people like Robinson insist that any attempt to keep guns out of the wrong hands is an assault on their freedom?

This should be a reminder of who Mark Robinson is — of who he has shown himself to be over and over again. Delivering the Republican response to Cooper’s State of the State address in March, Robinson sounded far more reasonable than we’ve come to expect from him, perhaps in hopes of catering to a wider, more moderate audience. But the truth is that Robinson remains a gun zealot, no matter how many mass shootings occur.

This story was originally published April 14, 2023 at 5:00 AM with the headline "As mass shootings continue unabated, NC Lt. Gov. Robinson cozies up to gun lobby | Opinion."