It’s not unusual for anti-Second Amendment politicians to lambaste this nation’s oldest-civil rights organization. President Joe Biden (D) routinely likes to say that he “took on the NRA and won,” despite this being provably false.
And, like Biden’s oft-repeated statement, it’s common for these same politicians to outright lie about the NRA and gun owners, which brings us to Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D). In his bid for the U.S. Senate seat made available by Sen. Pat Toomey’s (R) coming retirement, Fetterman decided he would try to score political points earlier this year by spreading further falsehoods.
“I’m not afraid of anything, and certainly not the NRA,” said Fetterman in April. “And let me be clear, the NRA does not represent the overwhelming majority of what gun owners really believe and want.”
The senatorial candidate didn’t stop there. “That is the lunatic fringe of gun ownership. And they are disproportionately represented and that skews the conversation. And pushing back at, I would never make the mistake of thinking, that’s representative of your average gun owner in America.”
Predictably, the event was held by Giffords, the anti-gun group that endorses every restrictive anti-Second Amendment policy possible; much like Fetterman, whom the group endorsed. Fetterman’s campaign website also lists universal background checks, red-flag laws and more on his wish list. It is also worth noting he supports abolishing the filibuster so that he may enact his anti-freedom agenda, which also includes banning what he calls “military-grade assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” and a desire to “throw out the PLCAA [Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act].”
So Fetterman thinks that every mainstream policy position of radical gun-control groups is what the “overwhelming majority of gun owners want,” while also claiming that the NRA is the “lunatic fringe of gun ownership.” This is curious, given that NRA-backed constitutional carry has spread throughout the nation and gun ownership over the past few years has soared, particularly among women and minorities. The NRA also played a crucial part in the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which affirmed the right to keep and bear arms, and struck down the subjective criteria that had been commonly used by New York permit issuing authorities to deny the vast majority of law-abiding citizens in the state from being able to exercise these rights. To say that the NRA doesn’t represent gun owners is simply not true.
In refrain, it’s no surprise that anti-gun candidates have to simply lie about the NRA, gun owners and more. John Fetterman is just another in a long line of out-of-touch politicians who despise your constitutional rights.
“Fetterman is endorsed by the gun-control group Giffords. To explain his views, he published a letter saying, in part, that the ‘NRA’ is somehow ‘suffocating’ members of Congress—actually, the NRA’s influence comes from its millions of members who vote. Fetterman also wrote that ‘the NRA would rather that a violent criminal could purchase my gun on the street, no questions asked.’ Has Fetterman ever looked at an NRA publication? It is the NRA that loudly argues that we need to prosecute armed criminals and those who help criminals get guns,” wrote America’s 1st Freedom Editor in Chief Frank Miniter.
Election day is fast approaching, and though Fetterman claims to want what “an overwhelming majority of gun owners believe and want,” he couldn’t be more out of touch.
