A video revealed that the National Rifle Association (NRA) president, Wayne Lapierre, and his wife fatally shot two endangered elephants in Botswana in 2013, causing outrage among conservation groups. The video was posted by the New Yorker and The Trace on Tuesday. The media outlets claimed to have acquired a copy of the footage, shot for an NRA-sponsored television series but never aired due to public relations issues.
Video exposed LaPierre and his wife shooting an African elephant
Wayne LaPierre, Jr., executive vice president of the NRA, can be seen in the ten-minute video shooting and injuring a savannah elephant that his guides had tracked for him in Botswana's Okavango Delta. Despite firing three shots at point-blank range, LaPierre failed to kill it, although the animal laid on the ground immobile, USA Today reported. A request for comment from the NRA was not promptly returned.
According to the Center for Biological Diversity, a U.S.-based nonprofit that works to conserve endangered species, Savannah elephants were recently promoted to endangered status by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Endangered Species, an international expert on the status of species, as per The Hill.
In the second half of the clip, guides assisted Susan LaPierre in shooting another elephant that fell to the ground on the first shot. She shot another round into the elephant's stomach before cutting off the elephant's tail and presenting it to the camera.
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LaPierres' hunting trip followed the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, in which a 20-year-old man fatally shot 20 children and six adults. In the aftermath of the attack, LaPierre gave a speech in which he urged lawmakers to place police officers in every school and condemned "the internet, violent video games, and music videos that depict murder as a way of life."
Last year, the New York Attorney General accused LaPierre and three other NRA officials of engaging in a fraud scheme that resulted in $64 million in losses and allowed them to live luxurious lives that included private jet travel to exclusive resorts. A New York judge dismissed the NRA's motion to dismiss the case earlier this year, causing it to proceed at the state court in Manhattan.
Nature conservationists have chastised LaPierre after a video of the hunting trip surfaced. "International experts recently declared savannah elephants extinct, and these intelligent creatures should not be used as paper targets by an incompetent marksman," Tanya Sanerib, international legal officer at the Center for Biological Diversity, said.
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The video also revealed NRA chief Wayne LaPierre's poor aim
Wayne and Susan LaPierre traveled to Botswana's Okavango Delta in 2013 to teach NRA members that they could take on African bush elephants, the world's largest ground mammals. The chief's poor marksmanship was caught on camera; after many tries, including from point-blank range, he could only wound the elephant rather than kill it.
A guide had to step in and fired the shot to kill the elephant, MEAWW reported. On the other hand, his wife had a firmer grasp of the weapon and finished the job in one take. Susan cut off the elephant's tail and raised it in the air screaming, "Victory! That's the elephant tail I'm talking about. That's cool."
"To escape negative news, the elephants' pieces were clandestinely smuggled back to the United States, where the animals' front feet were made into stools for the LaPierres' home," spies revealed in a tweet.
Susan grew up in the Wisconsin suburbs, according to her profile on the National Park Foundation website. Her father, she says, taught her how to hunt, fish, and shoot, meaning that these skills were essential for survival in Wisconsin's forests. She also mentioned that she intends to attract more women into the NRA due to her background and role in the organization. And that she has "always been a supporter" of both the Second Amendment and the NRA. Susan Lapierre is also a founding member of the NRA Women's Leadership Forum, where she serves as its leader.
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