CNN, the New York Daily News and other sources reported yesterday that Wayne LaPierre, executive director of the NRA, delivered a caustic reply to President Barack Obama's inaugural address.
According to CNN, NRA chief LaPierre stated that "We believe in our right to defend ourselves and our families with semi-automatic firearms," before the annual Weatherby International Hunting and Conservation Awards in Reno, Nevada. The NRA spokesman then added, according to the New York Daily News:
President Barack Obama quoted the Declaration of Independence and he talked about 'unalienable rights.' I would argue that his words make a mockery of both.
LaPierre argued that the President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden presented gun owners and the American people with a “false ultimatum” in the debate over gun control, according to The Hill, yesterday. LaPierre explained:
We're told that to stop insane killers, we must accept less freedom — less than the criminal class and political class keep for themselves. Obama is saying that the only ‘principled’ way to make children safe is to make lawful citizens less safe and violent criminals more safe.
LaPierre rejected President Obama's ultimatum and criticized the President's push for universal background checks, saying that the President wanted:
to put every private, personal transaction under the thumb of the federal government, and he wants to keep all those names in a massive federal registry. There are only two reasons for that federal list of gun owners — to tax them or take them. And to anyone who says that’s excessive, Barack Obama says you’re an ‘absolutist.’
LaPierre has also been sharply critical of reports, as delivered by The Hill yesterday, purporting that there is "growing support for a number of measures proposed by Obama." But a Gallup Poll released yesterday revealed that the country supports new federal control legislation in theory only. In practice, most Americans do not hold gun control as a priority. The economy still continues to dominate national concerns, and people would rather support school safety and mental health measures by a 2-to-1 margin over the President's proposed gun bans.
The Hill also does not take into account law enforcement professionals and the growing list of 129 sheriffs across the nation who have expressly rejected the President's proposed gun control laws and refuse to enforce them.
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