Explore The NRA Universe Of Websites

APPEARS IN News

Vote to Save Our Rights, Our Freedom and Our Country

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Vote to Save Our Rights, Our Freedom and Our Country

“Leadership, in short, is power governed by principle, directed toward raising people to their highest levels of personal motive and social morality.”
—James MacGregor Burns, Pulitzer Prize historian

Leadership. The late Prof. Burns’ words are a profound guide to our critical role as NRA members—especially now, just days away from the most historic election of our time—an election that can reverse the collapse in American values that we see all around us today.

Tuesday, November 4, can mark a turning point for our nation’s survival. What’s at stake, in changing the majority in the U.S. Senate and retaining the House pro-gun majority, is more than preserving the Second Amendment. It is securing the very future of our free nation as we know it—if we use the power of our votes to put an end to the moral, political, financial and constitutional chaos that grips us today.

As I travel the nation, there is a sad common denominator in the thousands of pleas I hear from Americans—men and women who are the backbone and moral core of our nation. Never before have they feared for the very existence of America as they do today, witnessing the chaos and enormous dangers that now engulf our nation and the world.

Changing that track is at the heart of this coming election, nothing less, and it’s time for the good guys to step forward and be counted.

Before taking his fingers-crossed oath of office, President Barack Obama pledged that “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

“Transforming?” Read “Destroying.” His words were a threat, preceding an administration marked by the corruption of law and raw absolute abuse of executive power exercised by Obama and his rubber-stamp Senate majority.

If we do not elect a national legislature that will hold Obama accountable, he and his radical cohorts will destroy the tree of liberty. Just mark my words.

We have already seen the steady erosion of our core constitutional values: the right to speak, the right to assemble, the right to be secure in our persons and papers. And we have seen relentless attacks on the right to keep and bear arms, especially our right to self-protection.

We are headed down the path to the destruction of our freedom, our way of life and the pollution of the American dream.

Michelle Obama, campaigning as his surrogate, defined “transformation” when she said in 2008, “Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual.”

“Lives as usual?” Read loss of liberty.

Saying, “We are going to have to change our conversation,” she warned:  “We’re going to have to change our traditions, our history; we’re going to have to move into a different place as a nation.”(emphasis added.)

“Change our traditions?” Look no further than President Obama’s consistent embrace of the massive firearm confiscation schemes carried out in Australia in the 1990s—which would translate into the destruction of 41 million privately owned firearms in our nation.

Obama and his me-too Senate majority led by Nevada’s Harry Reid and New York’s Chuck Schumer—given the chance—would indeed wipe out our tradition of the right to keep and bear arms, and with it our right to self-protection in a dangerous world.

“Traditions?” Just look at the crashed criminal justice system and the Obama Justice Department’s refusal to enforce immigration laws or to secure our southern borders against the massive invasion of illegals that doubtless includes terrorist and criminal elements bent on bringing violence to our soil.

“Change our conversation?” The Obama crowd has turned normal, civil, healthy political dialogue into class and political hatred, creating the “gridlock” that has intentionally wrecked the democratic process.

“Change our history?” With increasing federal control over local schools and colleges, the history of the greatness of our nation is rewritten or erased altogether from the curriculum governing the classrooms.

“Move to a different place as a nation?”

Obama has indeed moved our nation to a different place—second place, perhaps third place, and ultimately someday, no place at all.

It’s all coming true. We are no longer seen as the beacon of freedom in the world because our freedom is being extinguished at home.

All of this is being accomplished by a combination of neglect and hyper-activism that has spawned chaos at home and abroad.

Under Obama’s intentional neglect, the most barbaric force in modern history—the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)—has taken form as a monstrous hoard and, like a hurricane, gathered power. While Obama golfed, vacationed, entertained celebrities and raced around the country fundraising for his allies in Congress, this barbaric force multiplied. Rapes, beheadings, slavery of captured women, stonings, mass murders—all mark the seventh century barbarity that Obama says can be reduced to a “manageable problem” using America’s might. As one pundit said, “Acne is a manageable problem.” Evil must be destroyed.

America’s might? Under Obama, we have seen the U.S. military—the most exceptional force for peace in the world—degraded, downsized, decimated and demeaned, resulting in massive international instability and potential threats to our homeland.

Where Obama accomplishes his agenda to weaken our nation through abject failure and neglect, he corrupts our freedom at home through unconstitutional executive actions that could never receive the approval of Congress.

None of this—not the neglect, nor the lawless radical edicts—would have been possible without the acquiescence of Obama’s shameless water-carriers in the U.S. Senate. Obama’s Senate majority has become the ultimate defender of the indefensible.

With a strong pro-freedom majority keeping the reins in the U.S. House of Representatives and a new U.S. Senate majority ready to reclaim its constitutional functions and power, the Obama/Reid agenda can be stopped and America’s slide into oblivion can be halted.

Each of you is a proven leader in the fight to save our threatened or near-lost freedoms. We are the good guys—5 million strong—who must stand and fight and win. We must motivate family, friends, coworkers and neighbors to turn out and vote to reclaim and protect freedoms being eroded and stolen by President Barack Obama’s regime and by his rubber-stamp acolytes in the U.S. Senate.

Our national values can be saved, secured and protected if you lead the way to America’s polling places on November 4—armed with the NRA-ILA Political Preference Charts with candidate grades—and vote to save our country!

IN THIS ARTICLE
Wayne LaPierre
Wayne LaPierre

BY Wayne LaPierre

Executive Vice President, NRA

Since 1991, Wayne LaPierre has led the NRA through a period of unprecedented membership growth and political clout in defense of our Second Amendment rights. And that strength has been put to the good benefit of NRA members and gun owners. In large part because of Wayne's leadership, Right-to-Carry is now the law in 41 states. All 50 states have enacted laws to protect shooting ranges, and all 50 passed legislation to protect hunters from harassment.

TRENDING NOW
U.S. House Passes Reconciliation Bill, Removing Suppressors from the National Firearms Act

News  

Second Amendment  

Thursday, May 22, 2025

U.S. House Passes Reconciliation Bill, Removing Suppressors from the National Firearms Act

Earlier today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R.1 the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which included Section 2 of the Hearing Protection Act, completely removing suppressors from the National Firearms Act (NFA).

ATF Invites FFLs Zeroed Out Under Biden-Harris to Reapply

News  

Tuesday, May 27, 2025

ATF Invites FFLs Zeroed Out Under Biden-Harris to Reapply

Among all the infringements of the Second Amendment perpetrated by the Biden-Harris regime, one of the most punitive and consequential was ATF’s “zero tolerance” enforcement policy for Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs). 

U.S. Representative Suggests TRIPLING ($600) Suppressor Tax!

News  

Tuesday, May 27, 2025

U.S. Representative Suggests TRIPLING ($600) Suppressor Tax!

Excellent news for gun owners came last week when the U.S. House of Representatives passed President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill, which includes the complete removal of suppressors from the National Firearms Act (NFA). 

Twenty-four State Attorneys General Urge Congress to Pass H.R. 38

News  

Monday, June 2, 2025

Twenty-four State Attorneys General Urge Congress to Pass H.R. 38

On May 21, two dozen state attorneys general sent a letter to the leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives, urging that body to pass H.R. 38, the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act.

Loot Canal: U.S. Taxpayers Funded Bizarre Dental “Gun Violence” Research

News  

Monday, June 2, 2025

Loot Canal: U.S. Taxpayers Funded Bizarre Dental “Gun Violence” Research

When the Biden-Harris administration made clear they intended to use a “whole-of-government” approach to suppress Second Amendment rights, few could have predicted their efforts would extend all the way to the dentist’s office.

Australia’s Gun Laws, Failing in Different Ways

News  

Monday, June 2, 2025

Australia’s Gun Laws, Failing in Different Ways

Everything is relative, so the saying goes, which means that once in a while, it’s instructive to read about the gun laws and the state of gun rights in other countries. 

NRA-ILA Petitions the U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to NFA Restrictions on Short-Barreled Rifles

News  

Second Amendment  

Friday, June 6, 2025

NRA-ILA Petitions the U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to NFA Restrictions on Short-Barreled Rifles

Today, the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) filed a Petition for Certiorari requesting that the U.S. Supreme Court hear a challenge to the National Firearms Act of 1934’s restrictions on short-barreled rifles ...

NRA Files Amicus Brief in Challenge to Machinegun Possession Ban

Wednesday, June 4, 2025

NRA Files Amicus Brief in Challenge to Machinegun Possession Ban

Yesterday, the National Rifle Association, Firearms Policy Coalition, and FPC Action Foundation filed an amicus brief arguing that the federal prohibition on machinegun possession is unconstitutional as applied to the defendant in the Fifth Circuit case, United States ...

ATF Updates “Brady Permit Chart,” Reduces Need for Redundant NICS Checks

News  

Monday, June 2, 2025

ATF Updates “Brady Permit Chart,” Reduces Need for Redundant NICS Checks

We have been reporting on recent reforms by ATF to make its operations more transparent, professional, and public safety focused and less openly hostile to law abiding gun owners and the industries that serve them. 

Anti-gun Shakedown Machine Now Targets Toy Gun Sellers

News  

Monday, June 2, 2025

Anti-gun Shakedown Machine Now Targets Toy Gun Sellers

The pro-Second Amendment community understands that guns are not toys.

MORE TRENDING +
LESS TRENDING -

More Like This From Around The NRA

NRA ILA

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.