RSS feedNRA Letter to President Obama
National Rifle Association
FAIRFAX, Va. --(Ammoland.com)- Dear Mr. President:
We read your editorial submission to the Arizona Star. However, to focus a national dialogue on guns — and not criminals or mental health issues — misses the point entirely. Americans are not afraid of gun ownership. To the contrary, they overwhelmingly support the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms. The primary reason why tens of millions of Americans own firearms is that they fear violent criminals roaming the streets undeterred.
We agree with your assertion that “Americans by and large rightly refrained from finger-pointing” in light of the shooting in Tucson. In truth, the professional corps of gun control lobbyists moved with lightning speed to exploit the tragedy. These included the Violence Policy Center (“In the wake of these kind of incidents, the trick is to move quickly”), the Brady Campaign (“Gabrielle Giffords Shooting ‘Inevitable’”) and Mayors Against Illegal Guns-MAIG (“Bloomberg, Mayors Outline Steps to Help Prevent Another Tucson Shooting”). Your article contains talking points nearly identical to the ones circulated by MAIG for weeks in pursuit of its longstanding gun control agenda. In contrast, it was the National Rifle Association that avoided “playing politics with other people’s pain” with our consistent response that only thoughts and prayers for the victims and their families were appropriate in the immediate aftermath.
We also agree with your statement that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. Your record as a public official, however, is anything but supportive of the rights of law-abiding gun owners. In fact, when Congress had an opportunity to voice its support for the basic right of lawful Americans to own firearms, you refused to join a bipartisan majority of more than 300 of your colleagues in signing the congressional amicus brief to the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller. In addition, you previously stated (and have never retracted) your support for both Washington, D.C.’s and Chicago’s handgun and self-defense bans that the Court rightfully struck down in Heller and McDonald v. Chicago. Further, you surrounded yourself with advisors who have advocated against the Second Amendment for years (Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton and Rahm Emanuel, to name just a few) and you nominated Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court, one of whom has already attempted to eliminate the Second Amendment right entirely. More recently, you selected Andrew Traver to head the BATFE, despite his long-standing association with groups that support onerous new restrictions on our rights.
If you do in fact believe the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right, we suggest you demonstrate that in your policies and those of your Administration, which you have not done to date. Simply saying that you support the right to keep and bear arms is mere lip service if not put into action.
The government owes its citizens its most vigorous efforts to enforce penalties against those who violate our existing laws. The NRA has members proudly serving in law enforcement agencies at every level. Rank and file law enforcement want to arrest bad people — not harass law-abiding gun owners and retailers.
As for enforcing the laws on the books, we strongly suggest you enforce those that actually take violent criminals off the streets. To start, we urge you to contact every U.S. attorney and ask them to bring at least ten cases per month against drug dealers, gang members and other violent felons caught illegally possessing firearms. By prosecuting these criminals in federal court — rather than state court — strong sentencing guidelines would apply and charges would not be plea-bargained or dismissed, nor would criminals be released after serving only a fraction of their sentences. This simple directive would result in roughly 12,000 violent criminals being taken off the streets every year. Surely you agree that this would be a good first step.
Unfortunately, your Administration is currently under a cloud for allegedly encouraging violations of federal law. We suggest that you bring an immediate stop to BATFE’s “Fast and Furious” operation, in which an unknown number of illegal firearm transactions were detected — and then encouraged to fruition by your BATFE, which allegedly decided to let thousands of firearms “walk” across the border and into the hands of murderous drug cartels. One federal officer has recently been killed and no one can predict what mayhem will still ensue. Despite the protests of gun dealers who wished to terminate these transactions, your Administration reportedly encouraged violations of federal firearms laws — and undermined the firearm industry’s concerted efforts to deter straw purchases through the “Don’t Lie for the Other Guy” program. We hope you agree with our belief that this burgeoning scandal merits a full and independent investigation.
There are additional steps you can take to prevent tragic events such as the Tucson shooting from occurring in the future. One of these is to call on the national news media to refrain from giving deranged criminals minute-by-minute coverage of their heinous acts, which only serves to encourage copycat behavior. If media outlets won’t show a fan running onto the field during a baseball game because they don’t want to encourage that behavior by others — surely they can listen to law enforcement experts and refuse to air the photographs, video messages, or Facebook postings of madmen and murderers.
Another step is to encourage people to report red flags when they see them. In the case of Tucson, a man clearly bent on violence was not reported to the proper authorities by those who had good reason to believe he had serious mental problems. That’s not a deficiency in our gun laws, it’s a deficiency in our mental health system — and should be treated as such.
In closing, we agree that gun owners in America are highly responsible. This is in large part due to the NRA’s 140 years of dedication to promoting safe and responsible gun ownership, an effort on which we take a back seat to no one. We welcome any serious discussion on policies that focus on prosecuting criminals and fixing deficiencies in the mental health system. Any proposals to the contrary are not a legitimate approach to the issue.
Sincerely,
Wayne LaPierre
Executive Vice President
National Rifle Association
Chris W. Cox
Executive Director
NRA-ILA
About:
Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military. Visit: www.nra.org
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AWR Hawkins writes for all the BIG sites, for Pajamas Media, for RedCounty.com, for Townhall.com and now AmmoLand Shooting Sports News.
March 13, 2011
Dear President Obama,
Considering the fact the during the campaign you derided my fellow firearms owners for clinging to “their guns and their bibles.” I read your most recent missive with regard the horror that occurred in Arizona with a barrel of salt next to my desk. In addition it is highly disingenuous that the same man that is in charge of enforcing the present laws permitted hundreds of guns to flow into criminal hands via “Project Gun walker,” is now advocating for fixing this nations guns laws, from I know not what. I remind you that one of those guns, while in the hands of a criminal killed a federal officer.
You aptly point out that this deranged fellow should never had access to a lawfully purchased firearm. Assuming his past history in the public record this fellow should not of been able to purchase razor blades. As for Mr. Laughner being rejected from the service in the United States Army. The reason they reject people like this is not so much their mental state, but a result of the fact that the military use to have methods to “fix” people like this, and give them jobs appropriate to their capacities. But because those methods are not on the menu an entire class of individuals are rejected out of hand. Kind of like police officers who can’t pass the test, which the standards are then lowered so they can, just so long as their skin is of a certain color. I guess Gerald didn’t fit that description.
As for Mr. Laughner in particular. This sale occurred because of a breakdown in what a society is supposed to do with such an obvious case of a troubled young man, that has already had prior interaction with the local police department. Remember Mr. Obama he made his classmates so nervous that one of them remarked that they felt the need to sit closer to the door “just in case.” The professor himself felt so concerned for his safety that he also made comments about Mr. Laughners behavior. This did not require a background check, it required law enforcement and the judicial system to take action when notified of a continuing problem with an at risk citizen that actually wrote letters to politicians threatening their life. Had liberals like your self not hamstrung both in an effort to “protect a perps rights” it is highly likely that this fellow would have become an officers “special project” and he would have been taken care of in some creative way. You touch one hair on this kids head, even now after all the evil he has perpetrated, one would lose their job, pension – everything. But not these days. Mr. Laughner is just another soul among the many that have been educated in mind and not in morals and is a menace to society.
Finally, it has been two months since this terrible attack occurred. Why has his trial and execution not been fast tracked? Is their any doubt he did it? Is there any doubt of the motive or the opportunity and the murder weapon? All we need is a jury, a judge, couple of lawyers, and an electric chair. This is also part of the problem. In todays day and age there are seemingly no consequences to these horrendous acts. Nadal Hassan Malik and Faisal Shazad will likely live long lives and become pen pals. We spend massive resources incarcerating human waste like this that have abdicated any right to draw breath. Absolutely he and they are innocent until proven guilty. But he is guilty and this is not 1902. We’ve got the video. The receipt. The email. The threatening letters. All we need now is the extension cord and the correct amount of amperage. Not to be too cold hearted here, but who really deserves our limited resources Japan or these dirtbags?
In closing, your call for more laws, that no one will check, will fail. The lawless ask permission from no one before they harm innocent people. Which brings me to that rat that goes by the name Gadafi. Some rats need to die. Just like that wife beater in the Bronx who was permanently put down by that good samaritan last week, maybe it’s time you let the Air Force and the Navy take crack at that piece of human waste. Maybe you can up Reagan and get the little turd?
Respectfully,
Joe Doakes
I remember when the NICS was passed into law I was called an alarmist because I saw an eventual threat of expanding gun control laws leading to the eventual loss of private sales and transfers.
The NRA supported the NICS partly because they were afraid of looking weak on crime, plus they were willing to continue their efforts in supporting the disqualifiers in the 1968 GCA that they also supported.
I believed back then the NRA was playing a dangerous game of appeasement.
Today we are at the door step of those fears coming true.
Compromise and appeasement does not work.
The NRA needs to work toward the REPEAL of gun control laws and stop cutting deals with traitors
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It was a choice between a permanent 5-7 business day wait on handgun sales or an instant (NICS) check. It’s also important to keep in mind you were dealing with a much different Congress. The Dems controlled the U.S. Senate(57-43), the U.S. House (270-164) and had a Dem president committed to pushing gun control.
Maybe this will get posted.
If you want the truth about why Mr. Obama just pays lip service, find an article written by Steve Croft (60 minutes) that I think is titled “One Evil Human Being”. It is not just Mr. Obamas’ personal attitude towards these events. Keep going and George Soros shows up. Dig deeper and you will find that this whole quagmire goes back to a very large group of people that were forced to leave the Middle East somewhere along the lines of the 12th or 13th century. (You might find out why the Russian Czars’ toppled). Set up shop in Europe, changed their names to be affliliated with the Jewish society. Changed their names once more to escape certain death from Hitler and finally end up with the mess we have today. This all goes far beyond bad economies, worthless currency, and people hell bent on disarming you and I.
Obama is just the puppet dejure. Maybe the NRA should also stop “skirting” the REAL issue.
[...] NRA has written a response. See it at ammoland. Americans are not afraid of gun ownership. To the contrary, they overwhelmingly support the [...]
[...] has responded to the President’s op-ed (click here to read our response) and has declined the invitation to join in any discussions that have the obvious intent of [...]