Reno, NV – A top National Rifle Association official on Tuesday accused President Barack Obama of seeking to redefine the rights of gun owners, telling a hunting and wildlife conservation group that the president’s use of the word “absolutism” in his inauguration speech was an attack on law-abiding citizens who own firearms.
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Obama said in his speech Monday that Americans shouldn’t “mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.”
The remark was interpreted by the NRA as a reference to the organization’s steadfast opposition to any new gun regulations.
NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre told a Weatherby Foundation awards ceremony that the Second Amendment gives Americans the unfettered right to own a firearm, but the president wants to redefine that freedom.
“Absolutes do exist, words do have specific meaning in language and in law,” he said.
The president wants Americans to believe that “putting the federal government in the middle of every gun transaction” will make them safer, LaPierre said. But the NRA believes people have the right to defend themselves and their families with semi-automatic firearms technology, he said.
“No government gave them to us and no government can take them away.”
Obama last week unveiled a set of legislative proposals and executive actions on firearms that were formulated in the wake of last month’s Connecticut school shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead.
The NRA responded to the proposals by posting a Web video that labeled Obama an “elitist hypocrite” for allowing his daughters to be protected by armed guards while not embracing a proposal — supported by the NRA — that would place armed guards at all schools. The organization has also planned an aggressive lobbying push to thwart new gun regulations and has been raising money in response to the outcry for new gun laws.
LaPierre’s speech on Tuesday was billed as a response to Obama’s inaugural address.
NRA is proving adept, for all their money, at shooting themselves in the foot with their extremism at a point when most of America is so shocked at the brutality at Newtown that they want something done by the federal government. What’s next? Maybe LaPierre should demand that private citizens be granted permission to own tanks and F-15s?
Not that I’m complaining…and with Bloomburg, for all his faults, now seriously funding a competing pro-gun-control lobbying effort, the NRA’s 200 million / year budget doesn’t look nearly as daunting as it has looked over the past few decades.
The people demand action of some sort. If the NRA wants to shape the decision as to what we should do, they are welcome. If they insist on our doing nothing, there is no reason to invite them to sit at the grown-up table.
To#1- Actually, there is no prohibition against private citizens owning tanks. Of course, they are not allowed to possess the live artillery ammunition for the tank; however, ctizens, or collectors can still own a tank, and drive one on their private property, or in military parades, with the consent of the local authorities. In 1946, the government had thousands of surplus Sherman tanks, which it made available for sale. Of course, one would have to have a warehouse, or a large piece of land to store a tank. Also, it is a lot more expensive to maintain a tank, than it is a private car (i.e. motor tuneups, oil changes, batteries, etc.).
It doesn’t matter that his policies are right in line with those of Ronald Reagan – who believed assault weapons should be illegal and signed HUGE gun control bills as Governor of California – or either George Bush, who also wanted AW bans. It doesn’t even matter that the NRA helped write most of the gun control legislation up until the early 90s.
Their function is to sell weapons for the gun merchants who make up 3/4 of their funding these days; they can only do this by opposing anything he does. He could give away free machine guns and rocket launchers for all. They’d still scream and foam at the mouth