President’s Column | Truth And Lies At The Polls

by
at President, NRA posted on December 22, 2020
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Election Day 2020 has come and gone, and as I write this one week later, the race for president of the United States of America is not over. Unswayed by big media’s rush to coronate the Biden-Harris ticket, President Donald J. Trump and his campaign are now rightfully investigating numerous reports of phony ballots and illegal counting practices. It is their right and constitutional responsibility to do so, the only chance remaining to ensure free and fair elections for our republic. May they succeed in exposing any illegalities, and may God give our courts the wisdom and courage to uphold the rule of law. 

Hopefully by the time you read this in late December, every legal vote has been counted and all others have been thrown out in accordance with electoral statutes. And while I pray that all concerns stemming from this chaotic election cycle have since been resolved, I fear that the Left’s disregard for law and desperation for the power to tear America apart have created lasting harm to the point where critical questions may never be answered. 

Looking back, we can’t help but note that, once again, the polls got it all wrong when it came to tracking President Trump’s ability to connect with American voters. The befuddled pollsters, mostly funded by big-media, university and special-interest elites, claim their big-dollar, “scientific” surveys are statistically valid to the nth percentile. But, yet again, they missed badly on predicting the president’s appeal to voters, not to mention the “blue wave” they said would flip the U.S. Senate and state legislatures. It certainly makes one wonder about the true origin and purpose of their data. 

Why does this merit our attention? Because election polling is simply more of the same brand of fuzzy math leveled at our right to keep and bear arms. Every time some deranged psychopath commits a heinous crime with a firearm, a blitz of anti-gun talking heads rushes to appear on sympathetic TV and podcasts to flog more fake survey data about how America wants to restrict firearm ownership, ban the most popular and useful personal-defense guns and, truth be told, do away with what they call the “embarrassing” 2nd Amendment.

In the last three years, Politico, Gallup and NPR/Pew Research, among others, reported that at least 60 percent of Americans want stricter guns laws. Do those numbers reflect the America you live in? They certainly don’t reflect election-day results since 1980, as NRA’s conservative allies have won the presidency at least six of 11 terms and controlled majorities in houses of Congress 42 times. In 2021, Republicans will hold 27 governorships and legislative majorities in 29 statehouses. Despite erroneous polling, the gun-freedom side is on a long-term winning streak.

But in the aftermath of 2020, no freedom-loving patriot can be complacent. Too many races were too close for comfort, and without NRA’s hard work educating voters and motivating them to cast their ballots, the end results could have been tragically different. 

Now we must do so again as vitally important runoff elections for both U.S. Senate seats will take place in my home state of Georgia on Jan. 5. While incumbent Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler—both A-rated by the NRA Political Victory Fund—easily surpassed their opponents’ vote counts in November, Georgia law requires victors to win by majority. NRA’s ability to help get these candidates over the finish line could determine control of the Senate, and trust me, that control is an absolute necessity going into the next Congress, a fortification against the attack on our rights we know is coming with or without Biden and Harris. During the campaign, their party platform promised an all-out onslaught of executive-order gun control, and we can expect our freedom to be atop the Democrats’ hit list.  

Fortunately, both in the runoffs and all elections going forward, a large pool of reinforcements is available—the more than 6 million new gun owners who joined our ranks over the past year. It bears repeating, and the attention of all NRA members, to welcome and mentor the newcomers, who largely decided to acquire their first guns out of concern for family and personal safety as mobs rule city streets and anti-gun governors release convicted felons in record numbers.

Like you and me, the folks joining our ranks refuse to give in to the tyranny currently plaguing our society, and we can help by steering them to qualified NRA instructors and ultimately encouraging them to double-down on their heightened preparedness by joining NRA. This influx of new voters and their families can help ensure gun rights for generations to come.

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