BRISTOL, Va. – National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre said President-elect Barack Obama’s vows to protect the Second Amendment might be little more than a wave of empty promises.
“I predict he’ll break his campaign promises,” LaPierre said Friday, just before speaking to a packed auditorium at the Bristol Public Library.
“Based on his voting record, his administration would be the most anti-gun in United States history,” LaPierre said of Obama.
Visiting as the final guest in the library’s inaugural Discovery Lecture series, LaPierre addressed the importance of gun rights, the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that supports the individual’s right to carry a gun, and Obama’s record on gun rights.
He said the civil unrest that erupted in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina illustrates the importance of the individual’s right to bear arms.
“There was no 911, no police response, looters, criminals and darkness,” he said. “Most people said their only saving grace was their gun.”
LaPierre said the Supreme Court ruling issued in June, in Heller vs. the District of Columbia, is a victory for gun rights advocates.
“That the Supreme Court ruled that owning a gun is your individual right, I mean, that’s monumental,” he said.
The high court decision rocked the country, settling a decades-long debate over the interpretation of the Second Amendment. Justice Antonin Scalia, in writing the majority opinion on the 5-4 decision, defined the right to bear arms as belonging to an individual rather than a collective as the anti-gun camp had contended for years.
With that ruling, for the first time in 40 years, pro-gun advocates find themselves on the offensive.
“We at the NRA intend to say on the offense,” LaPierre told his audience.
“The media will have you believe Heller can let gun owners rest easy, that it’s over, but that’s not true,” LaPierre said. “This freedom is worth fighting for.”
Gun sales have surged nationwide since this time last year, both leading up to and in the days since Obama was selected as the next U.S. president. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, sales were up 17 percent in May from what they were in May 2007.
Yet there is concern that Barack Obama, whose congressional voting record has been consistently anti-gun, will challenge the gains provided by the Heller decision.
“I think gun owners in this country are scared,” LaPierre said. “I certainly hope he keeps his promise.
“The American public really does believe [gun ownership] is their freedom,” LaPierre said. “ ... And I think we’re in a good position if they do bring it up in Congress.”
When asked about gun control initiatives that the new administration might adopt, LaPierre was noncommittal.
He said, however, that he is hopeful because there seems to have been a shift in the Democratic party.
“You had a rethinking of the gun issue,” LaPierre said. “The new prototype being much more pro-Second Amendment.”
One problem, he said, is in the vast divide between the Democratic party elite and everyone else.
“The elite is really out of touch with the rest of the party, you know, the union workers ...,” he said. “The truth is that the NRA is about as mainstream as you can get in terms of the American public.”
On what the next few years will bring, he said: “It’s going to be interesting.”
ahunter@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2531
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