You won’t hear this from the anti-gun media elites. In fact, they’re doing their level best to hide it, sweep it under the rug and hope that no one notices. But the fact is last year was a banner year for NRA members—a year in which our strength, resolve and fighting spirit were on full display.
When President Joe Biden nominated radical anti-gun lobbyist David Chipman to the top post at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), every expert and pundit in the country thought Chipman’s Senate confirmation was a foregone conclusion. Biden wanted a radical, unscrupulous gun-hater who would use and abuse his authority at ATF to cripple our Second Amendment rights—one crushing restriction at a time.
But a funny thing happened on the way to Chipman’s coronation. The anti-gun elites underestimated—as they have so many times before—the willingness of NRA members to stand and fight no matter the odds. Instead of scoring what he thought would be an easy victory, we handed Biden a resounding and embarrassing defeat.
We also took the biggest Second Amendment case in more than ten years all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. This landmark case—brought by an NRA affiliate, the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association—will decide whether every law-abiding American’s right to self-defense stops at their front door, or if it exists outside our homes.
While the Court has yet to issue a ruling, there is no question that our hard work throughout multiple election cycles has put us in the best possible position for victory. This is because the pro-freedom presidents and senators we’ve helped over the years have put pro-Second Amendment justices on the bench.
You and I also sent shockwaves throughout the nation in last year’s Virginia elections—helping defeat Clinton crony and gun-ban extremist Terry McAuliffe in a governor’s race he was long predicted to win. With this year’s midterm elections looming large, what happened in Virginia will have a profound impact on dozens of key races this November.
And never forget, at the beginning of last year, Biden promised not only to ban the sale of semi-automatic firearms, but to institute massive government gun roundups disguised as “mandatory buybacks.” Biden promised to ban online ammunition sales and to use your tax money to set up state-level gun-owner-licensing schemes. He also wanted to limit the number of guns you’re allowed to purchase and to bankrupt the American gun manufacturers under a mountain of new lawsuits.
But what Joe Biden wasn’t counting on was you.
When Biden told you he’d bury your semi-autos in a giant scrap heap like we’ve seen in England and Australia, you buried Congress under a mountain of phone calls, letters and emails instead. When he tried to blame you for the crime wave that his anti-police, soft-on-crime allies have unleashed on our nation, you stood your ground—knowing that your sacred right to own firearms protects your life and loved ones even when the police can’t.
Instead of ramming his full agenda through Congress—a Congress controlled lock, stock and barrel by gun-ban fanatics—Joe Biden ran into a brick wall of NRA members.
So I hope you’ll always look back at 2021 with pride—knowing that it was your courage under fire that not only prevented the wholesale destruction of our gun rights, but also helped NRA capitalize on key opportunities to strengthen our freedom.
Look back, but don’t stare too long, because now we need to fix our gaze on this year’s overwhelmingly important mid-term election battle.
The immediate and lasting future of our Second Amendment freedom will depend on this national election.
If we can take away Biden’s anti-gun majority in Congress, we can keep his freedom-killing agenda bottled up during his last two years in the White House.
However, if Biden gains the tiny handful of seats he needs to win rubber-stamp majorities in the U.S. House and Senate, you and I will face the steepest uphill climb to stop the absolute destruction of our Second Amendment rights we’ve ever faced.
One by one by one, you, me and our fellow NRA members left our mark on freedom last year in a way that will be remembered for years to come. Together, we formed an unbreakable chain that simply could not and would not be defeated.
But everything we’ve ever achieved together, every victory we’ve ever won, every freedom we hope to preserve for future generations, will now come down to one single day—Nov. 8, 2022—mere months from now.
It’s a battle we can and must win. And thanks to NRA members like you, I know we’ve got a fighting chance!
This appeared in the February 2022 issue of America's 1st Freedom.
