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Gun Owners of America Director Larry Pratt on Sunday called for lawmakers to end gun-free zones at schools instead of "wasting out time" with the "false security" of universal background checks.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden told host Chris Wallace that the argument that background checks wouldn't help stop mass shootings was "absolutely wrong."

"If we look at the Virginia Tech shooting, that was because we had a faulty background check system that that person wasn't caught," she explained. "He should not have had a gun because he had problems with mental illness... People would be alive today if we had these kinds of things in place."

Pratt, however, said that gun safety advocates were "avoiding the reality that we have been moving in the direction that somehow self defense is not valid, that we can somehow protect ourselves by this background check idea."

"I think it's false security that somehow we're going to stop problems, when there's really no way to spot these problems," he insisted. "Some of the most horrendous mass murders that have happened recently -- including the one in Newtown -- would not have been stopped by a background check."

"We're wasting our time going in that direction when we should be talking about doing away with the gun-free zones, which have been so convenient and such a magnate to those who would come and slaughter lots of people knowing that there's going to be nobody that's legally able to defend themselves in these zones."

Pratt added: "In fact, background checks wouldn't have stopped most of these mass murders that have occurred... We got to face the reality that we've got empower average people, including teachers and other people in schools to be able to defend themselves."

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I don't watch Piers Morgan's show too often since it's generally just a bunch of celebrity gossip that makes his predecessor, Larry King, look like he practiced serious journalism in comparison, but I caught some of his show following the tragic shooting in Aurora, Colorado this weekend. And I have to admit I'm really glad I heard someone say what Morgan did this Friday evening about when it's acceptable to talk about gun control.

If we don't talk about gun control after a tragedy like this one, it won't get talked about at all... period. And even if we do have a discussion now, both political parties are so beholden to or scared to death of the NRA, that neither of them are going to act unless there's finally enough pressure from enough voters that siding with the NRA is finally a losing proposition and is going to cost some politicians their seats. Given their huge war chest, that's a big hurdle to overcome. I'm not sure how many more people have to die by gun violence for that to finally become a reality.

Anyway, as I said, I'm no big fan of Piers Morgan, but it was nice to see for once the hypocrisy of not being allowed to talk about the root causes of this many deaths when we don't treat any other issue that way. People die and we want to know why and how to prevent it from happening. Sadly it seems even a Democratic member of Congress being shot wasn't enough to wake these people up that the laws need to be changed. Makes me wonder how many nut jobs out there have to be killing one of their own before enough is enough and Congress is willing to act. Apparently just one wasn't, which still just astounds me.

Transcript of Morgan going after the Cato hack below the fold.

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