There was a time in this country when our elected leaders actually cared about protecting the innocent. But today, they don’t. Instead, they misuse and abuse the power of their offices to protect criminals. Because public safety isn’t their goal. Tearing down freedom and disarming you and me is all they care about. In their warped world, criminals are coddled, not punished.
And so violent felons terrorize our communities and prey on the innocent, thanks to a sinister revolving-door “justice” scheme that is purposefully designed to keep them on the streets and out of jail. You can see it everywhere you look!
Far-left political elites—from the President of the United States on down to governors, mayors and radical district attorneys—they fuel a raging fire of violence, murder and crime in our communities. And then those same elites blame you, me, our fellow NRA members and our constitutional freedom for the carnage they create. Their answer to violent crime is to render the innocent helpless against the deadly criminals they enable.
That’s why political hacks in federal agencies pump out propaganda designed to convince more and more Americans that lawful gun ownership, and the fundamental human right to self-defense, is a “public-health problem,” a disease that’s spread by you, me and all patriotic Americans who exercise their God-given right to protect themselves and their loved ones.
And what do they say is the cure for this make-believe illness? Gun registration. Gun bans. Ammunition bans. Not to mention the outright shaming and vicious persecution of law-abiding gun owners. Think about that.
Biden and his ilk go out of their way to make excuses for dangerous, violent and murderous criminals and to keep them on the streets. But when it comes to peaceful, hard-working, law-abiding Americans? We’re mocked, slandered and vilified every time Biden finds his way to a microphone.
My friends, in all our years fighting together, we’ve never witnessed this level of hatred aimed squarely at the principles and values that you and I hold dear. The same principles and values that made America the freest and most prosperous nation on earth.
Well, I’m happy to report to you today that your NRA isn’t only holding the line for freedom, we’re advancing it! Right now, 26 states have constitutional-carry laws on the books. And we won’t stop fighting until all 50 states recognize what you and I know to be true: Our right to carry a firearm is guaranteed by the Second Amendment, and no law-abiding citizen should have to ask for special government permission to defend him or herself or their loved ones.
Just last summer, NRA scored the biggest victory for our gun rights in a decade when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that law-abiding Americans have the right to carry firearms for self-defense outside our homes. And more recently, when Joe Biden’s ATF tried to force millions of law-abiding gun owners to register, alter or surrender their lawfully owned stabilizing pistol braces—it was the NRA that sounded the alarm and is leading the fight to stop them.
My friends—American freedom, once admired, revered, respected and emulated worldwide—is now under attack from within. Next year’s national election will not decide the future of our freedom for the next four years. It will decide whether our freedom, as we know it, survives at all.
Right now, we have a president who views each and every one of us as his enemy for the simple reason that we protect the fundamental, natural rights found in the Second Amendment–-and he wants to strip those rights away from us.
Right now, we have a president who said that law-abiding gun owners who own semi-automatic firearms are sick people. And that owning them has no social redeeming value.
Right now, we have a president who wants to reinstate Bill Clinton’s sweeping, crushing gun ban. Right now, we have a president who wants to ban all standard-capacity magazines and force everyone who owns them to either register them with the federal government or turn them in.
Right now, we have a president who wants to roll out a red carpet for trial lawyers to sue American gunmakers out of existence. And right now, the only thing stopping Joe Biden from completely gutting our freedom is a handful of votes in Congress.
From now until Election Day, you’re going to hear from pollsters and so-called experts that this group over here, or that group over there, is the key to this winning this election. One day they’ll say it’s women voters. The next day it’s men. The day after that it’s young voters or retirees, or this religion or that race.
But let me tell you something, and if you take away only one thought, I hope it’s this: If every NRA member does his or her part today, tomorrow and every day leading up to Nov. 5 next year, we can take back our country and our freedom! We can preserve our Second Amendment rights! We can rekindle a passion for freedom in the hearts of all Americans!
And we can do it all by kicking Joe Biden out of office and out to pasture!
