Wayne LaPierre may be top gun at the National Rifle Association, but a newly discovered video suggests he may not be that great of a marksman.
The New Yorker and The Trace obtained footage from 2013 that shows LaPierre, the NRA’s chief executive, attempting and failing four times to kill an African elephant in Botswana’s Okavango Delta.
The trip was filmed for “Under Wild Skies,” a proposed NRA-sponsored show that was intended to appeal to hunters. The program never aired, and the footage was hidden away due to concerns that it could become a public relations disaster, The New Yorker said.
The video of the trip shows LaPierre struggling to kill the elephant; the first shot just wounds the animal. But even after guides bring LaPierre within point-blank range of the immobilized creature, he shoots the animal three times in the wrong area. Finally, the host of the proposed series takes over and fires the shot that kills the animal.
LaPierre’s wife, Susan LaPierre, didn’t have the same problems as her husband. In the video, after guides track down an elephant, she kills it without apparent difficulty. Then she cuts off the elephant’s tail, held it in the air and yelled, “Victory! That’s my elephant tail. Way cool.”