by Wayne LaPierre, NRA Executive Vice President
With Gov. Mitt Romney’s and Rep. Paul Ryan’s pro-Second Amendment stance versus the Chicago-style gun-ban political machine of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, the votes of the nation’s gun owners have never been more important. We can and must make the difference at the polls on Nov. 6.
As individual NRA members—you and I are the key to a victory that will save “We the People” from the Obama regime’s systemic degradation of our freedom through Obama’s pledge to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.” Gutting the right to keep and bear arms is a key part of the “transformation.”
For NRA members there has never been a clearer call to action.
Mitt Romney is firmly committed to the protection of our constitutional liberties. Paul Ryan, a passionate hunter and shooter, is totally dedicated to our cause. Both have pledged to uphold our values, our ideals and our aspirations for a better America.
This election will decide whether the core principles of the Constitution will continue to guide our country, and whether Americans like you and me will continue to have an ironclad right to keep and bear arms.
If you consider the U.S. Supreme Court—with up to three vacancies likely in the next four years—the election of Mitt Romney to the presidency and removal of Barack Obama from that awesome seat of power is critical. Twice, the Second Amendment has been held to protect an individual right by one vote on the high court. Change that balance and all could be reversed.
In contrast, look at the platform unanimously adopted by the convention that nominated Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and gave its unqualified support to the Second Amendment, America’s First Freedom:
“We acknowledge, support, and defend the law-abiding citizens’ God-given right of self-defense. We call for the protection of such fundamental individual rights recognized in the Supreme Court’s decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago affirming that right. …”
On the questions of Right to Carry, Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground laws, the Romney-led convention moved with equally firm resolve:
“We support the fundamental right to self-defense wherever a law-abiding citizen has a legal right to be, and we support federal legislation that would expand the exercise of that right by allowing those with state-issued carry permits to carry firearms in any state that issues such permits to its own residents.”
The platform applauded the U.S. House of Representatives contempt citation against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for his cover-up of “Operation Fast and Furious”—the Obama administration’s gun-walking scheme that officially sanctioned the illegal purchase and smuggling of thousands of firearms into Mexican criminal commerce. That rogue operation resulted in the tragic death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent and the murders of hundreds of Mexican citizens.
When Barack Obama boasted in October 2008 that his ascension to power was about “fundamentally transforming the United States of America,” ordinary Americans had no clue as to what that threat meant. Now we do.
That transformation—which includes every aspect of our private lives as citizens—is being moved forward every day with Obama’s transformation of the executive branch from a constitutional branch that carries out the legislative directives of the Congress to a self-contained imperial power.
Obama recently declared that he’ll bypass Congress and the American people to achieve his political aims, announcing that, “If Congress refuses to act … I’ll do everything in my power to act without them.”
Examples of that abusive theft of power and arrogant disdain for the U.S. Constitution are everywhere. Congress enacts immigration laws to secure our borders and staunch the flood of illegal aliens, but Obama ignores those laws and manufactures his own “law” to “legalize” thousands of them. Congress mandates that Obama can’t create a gun owner registration scheme in America. No matter. He does it anyway by illegally ordering gun registration on rifle purchasers in five border states.
Obama is incompetent when it comes to doing the job Americans expect of a president. But for his own goals for a transformed America, he is a success—a master usurper of power—power to be wielded against our freedom in a second term and beyond. Already, he’s submitted a 2013 budget for the federal government that includes no fewer than six direct attacks against gun owners and the Second Amendment.
Obama aides are fond of saying this is Obama’s last election and he has to win. But this may be the last election for our rights if we don’t win.
With this election, your vote will be the last chance to stop Obama from changing America into a country we no longer recognize.
Facts don’t lie. And the facts make it clear that, if Barack Obama wins this election, freedom loses.
In the coming days before the Nov. 6 election, we must make sure that every gun owner is registered to vote, gets to the polls and votes “All In” to elect a Romney/Ryan administration that will reverse the grievous harm done by the Obama crowd, and save freedom and the country we love.
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