Free Republic

It was, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada ebulliently proclaimed, a “happy day for me” as he stood with Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association, in 2010 at a new shooting range in Las Vegas made possible by federal money secured by Mr. Reid. “People who criticize this probably would criticize baseball,” Mr. Reid said before firing off a few rounds. These days, Mr. Reid, the Senate majority leader, is far more likely to meet with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, an outspoken advocate of stricter gun control, than with Mr. LaPierre as he prepares to...

On Sunday, the country marked 100 days since a man wielding a semiautomatic Bushmaster assault rifle killed 20 young children and 6 faculty members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Just days earlier, on March 19, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced that he would not include a ban on military-style assault weapons - like the rifle used by the killer at Sandy Hook - in the Senate's upcoming gun bill and would focus instead on other gun laws that stood a better chance of passage. Disappointed supporters of the ban mostly moved on, fixing their sights...

National Rifle Association head Wayne LaPierre said Sunday that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) is trying to “buy America” by spending millions of his personal fortune to urge key senators to vote for gun control. “He can’t spend enough of his $27 billion to try to impose his will on the American public,” LaPierre said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “They don’t want him in their restaurants, they don’t want him in their homes, they don’t want him telling what food to eat. They sure don’t want him telling what self-defense firearms to own. He can’t buy America.”...

The National Rifle Association (NRA) pushed back against President Obama’s calls for gun control in his State of the Union address, arguing the proposals would lead to “confiscation” of citizens’ firearms. A new Web video released Tuesday night from the nation’s largest gun lobby sought to rebuff the president’s impassioned call for lawmakers to vote on a package of measures including bans on the sale of assault weapons, high-capacity clips and instituting mandatory background checks. “President Obama gives a good speech and when you listen him talk about new gun laws, you may think he sounds reasonable,” says NRA executive...

Within hours of the Jan. 8, 2011, mass shooting in Tucson that killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the local sheriff blamed the state’s lenient gun laws. “I have never been a proponent of letting everybody in the state carry weapons under any circumstances that they want -- and that's almost where we are,” complained Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. “I think we’re the Tombstone of the United States of America.” Dupnik would prove to have a knack for intemperate remarks, and this one was historically inaccurate, but the frustration of law enforcement officials...

President Barack Obama's proposals to curb gun violence face a difficult path through a sharply divided U.S. Congress, where the biggest gun-control fight in decades looms on an issue that has long been one of the most divisive in American politics. Obama's plan sets up a showdown between a gun-control movement re-energized by the massacre of 20 children and six adults last month at a Connecticut school, and a powerful gun-rights lobby led by the National Rifle Association, which has blocked new action on gun control for almost two decades. Members of both parties said Obama's call for expanded background...

Statement From the National Rifle Association of America Regarding Today's White House Task Force MeetingFairfax, Va. – The National Rifle Association of America is made up of over 4 million moms and dads, daughters and sons, who are involved in the national conversation about how to prevent a tragedy like Newtown from ever happening again. We attended today's White House meeting to discuss how to keep our children safe and were prepared to have a meaningful conversation about school safety, mental health issues, the marketing of violence to our kids and the collapse of federal prosecutions of violent criminals. We...

<p>The words were tucked deep into the sprawling text of President Obama’s signature health-care overhaul. Under the headline “Protection of Second Amendment Gun Rights” was a brief provision restricting the ability of doctors to gather data about their patients’ gun use — a largely overlooked but significant challenge to a movement in American medicine to treat firearms as a matter of public health.</p>

Jim Sleeper, a “lecturer in political science” at Yale, wrote the following in today’s Huffington Post: The astonishing “new normal” of heavy gunfire that took hold in Newtown long before last week’s massacre only reinforces the parallel I drew here last week between today’s gun enthusiasts and yesterday’s racial segregationists.… To understand what we’re up against here, understand that many other gun enthusiasts think of themselves this way, too — and that they see their critics as moralists addled by silly delusions about human nature. They alone uphold honor against depravity: Southern segregationists thought their way of life necessary to channel the...

Remarks from the NRA press conference on Sandy Hook school shooting, delivered on Dec. 21, 2012 (Transcript)Here's a transcript of the remarks from the NRA press conference on the Sandy Hook school shooting. Statements are being updated as the remarks unfold.DAVID KEENE, PRESIDENT,  NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION: Good morning.--snip--LAPIERRE: Good morning.The National Rifle Association -- 4 million mothers, fathers, sons and daughters -- join the nation in horror, outrage, grief, and earnest prayer for the families of Newtown, Connecticut, who have suffered such an incomprehensible loss as a result of this unspeakable crime.Out of respect for the families and until the facts...

Instead of demonizing gun owners, the government should help them promote safety. As a gun owner I am frustrated that some positive ideas for helping stop mass murders are being left out of the conversation. As we again search for ways to prevent the deranged from slaughtering people in malls, schools, and churches, we find we have had this debate before. It’s like watching a shouting match between partisans on a cable show. One side wants more gun control. The other side points out that more guns mean less crime. One wants a new “assault-weapons” ban. The other points out...

The National Rifle Association of America is made up of four million moms and dads, sons and daughters – and we were shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in Newtown. Out of respect for the families, and as a matter of common decency, we have given time for mourning, prayer and a full investigation of the facts before commenting.The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again.The NRA is planning to hold a major news conference in the Washington, DC area on Friday, December 21.Details will...

For once I agree with liberals. It’s high time to have a conversation about guns. Let’s start with the problem that there are far too few guns on our streets. Wait, we can’t have that conversation. In fact, we’re not supposed to have what people might commonly describe as a “conversation” at all. We’re supposed to shut-up and listen as liberals, barely masking their unseemly delight at the opportunity, try to pin the murder rampage of one degenerate creep on millions of law-abiding Americans who did nothing wrong. The conversation is then supposed to end with us waiving our fundamental...

On CNN contributor Roland Martin’s podcast posted to his website Monday, Jason Whitlock, the columnist who inspired Bob Costas’ commentary on gun control during halftime of Sunday’s Dallas Cowboys-Philadelphia Eagles game on NBC, revealed his peculiar take on the National Rifle Association (NRA).Whitlock spoke out against the NFL’s handling of the aftermath of Jovan Belcher’s suicide and gun issues in his Sunday FoxSports.com column. During Martin’s podcast, he likened the NRA to the Ku Klux Klan and tied the group to the dangerous street culture that unfortunately dominates “so many black youths.”“Sports gets so much attention, and people tune out...

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has been saying for the past two years that President Obama would ban guns if given a second term. Mr. Obama had been careful to pretend otherwise until last week’s debate, when he let slip his intention to ban certain types of firearms. That has sparked a renewed political war on both sides of the issue. Mr. Obama’s revelation has energized the pro-gun forces. “The president peeked out from behind the curtain and said, ‘Guess what, the NRA has been right all along. I am anti-Second Amendment and you can take my protestations to the...

TUCSON, Ariz. It is easy to ignore the issue of gun control, given the perfect leaderlessness it enjoys in Congress. Then again, it becomes harder to ignore when your relatives or friends are murdered in the company of someone you idolize, which describes thousands of us here. I have owned guns, continuously, since I was 6. I still own my grandfather’s pump-action Winchester, carried for decades in a scabbard behind his saddle as he rode the range where he ranched, in Wikieup, Ariz. All the guns I’ve owned have been what are quaintly called long guns. I began my brief...

In America, we are supposed to like constitutional rights.One would think that an organization that vigilantly — and effectively — safeguards a constitutional right would be honored as a kind of national jewel.Yet the National Rifle Association gets only obloquy. It’s practically branded an accessory to murder whenever a lunatic shoots people. It’s labeled a nefarious special interest that lobbies Congress into submission. It’s all that is wrong with our system.No one can doubt the NRA’s enormous clout. But the group comes about it the right way. It represents millions of members, including lots of union members and rural...

The two most important words in the current Obama administration scandal aren’t “Fast” or “Furious.” They are “Brian Terry.” In December 2010, Brian Terry — a former Marine and police officer turned Border Patrol agent — was working in Arizona, 11 miles from the Mexican border. He was killed in a gunfight with Mexican drug runners, and two of the AK-47s found at the scene were linked to a then-unknown program of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms called “Operation Fast and Furious.” Is the investigation into ‘Fast and Furious’ something being driven by partisan politics? Join the Friday...

To the Editor: “I Hunt, but the N.R.A. Isn’t for Me,” by Lily Raff McCaulou (Op-Ed, April 25), is another desperate, but predictable, election-year stunt to try to marginalize National Rifle Association members. The N.R.A. not only represents four million N.R.A. members, but polls also indicate that tens of millions more support us, and a healthy percentage of the population takes our positions into account before casting a vote. Whether liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, man or woman, we’ll fight for you because at its core, the Second Amendment isn’t about hunting. It’s about self-defense and freedom. The claim...

  NRA Delivers Remarks at United Nations Concerning Proposed Arms Trade Treaty   Thursday, July 14, 2011   National Rifle Association's Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre addressed the United Nations this afternoon. He told the U.N. to not interfere with the Second Amendment freedoms of Americans and pledged to continue the fight to preserve civilian ownership of firearms in the U.S. He said the NRA will oppose any U.N. provision that seeks to prohibit or regulate U.S. civilian firearm ownership.  LaPierre said in his remarks, "The cornerstone of our freedom is the Second Amendment. Neither the United Nations, nor...