This feature appears in the June ‘15 issue of NRA America’s 1st Freedom, one of the official journals of the National Rifle Association.
In the months leading up to Election Day, Nov. 8, 2016, Americans who cherish the core values of our nation are facing dual dire threats: a relentless ramping up of President Barack Obama’s rogue agenda to destroy our unique American freedoms; and Hillary Clinton’s multi-billion-dollar political campaign that is designed to buy Obama’s throne in the White House.
I said buy. In April, the Washington Examiner published figures showing the combined Clinton machine is in the process of planning a $2.5 billion-plus campaign, spending $38 per vote to purchase the presidency of the United States.
Were that to happen, Obama’s lawless bureaucracy would not only thrive, but would metastasize under a Hillary Clinton regime wielding its own abuse of power.
With the stunning loss of his rubber-stamp U.S. Senate majority, and with firm Second Amendment majorities in both houses of Congress, Obama has placed his lawless executive actions into overdrive to carry out his vendetta against our civil rights.Acting beyond any constitutional authority, Obama has shut out the legislative and judicial branches, and in doing so, has become a dangerous and desperate loose cannon on the deck of the ship of state.
Acting beyond any constitutional authority, Obama has shut out the legislative and judicial branches, and in doing so, has become a dangerous and desperate loose cannon on the deck of the ship of state.
Over the next 600 days, Obama will use executive orders, and the raw power of his federal out-of-control radical bureaucrats, to do as much damage to our Second Amendment-protected rights as he possibly can.
We have stopped him so far. Yet the days ahead are some of the most dangerous days in the history of the Second Amendment. Each day we must stand and fight.
But Clinton and the fresh crowd she would bring with her aren’t just reinforcements, they are a whole guerilla army of gun-ban ideologues and accomplished government insiders ready to take up where Obama will be leaving off.
Were she to take the presidency, Clinton is capable of being the most disastrous chief executive for the Second Amendment in our lifetime. She’ll stack the Supreme Court with justices who will reverse the landmark Heller and McDonald cases, which recognized the Second Amendment as an individual right covering armed self-defense and expanded it to the states.
And she will increase Obama’s lawless use of executive power in ways we cannot yet imagine. Eight years of Clinton can reverse everything we have successfully fought for.
I travel to every corner of our nation to meet with gun owners and other Americans who equally cherish our liberty. Over and over, people tell me that they are looking to us as NRA members to provide leadership. They, like us, deeply fear for our country, and they need a voice—they need the collective power of like-minded Americans who wish to preserve the rights that secure our freedoms.
More than 100 million gun owners need to see a threat to their guns, but they also need to perceive a larger threat to the sanctity of what this country is all about.
In addition to witnessing the erosion of our core values and the destruction of American exceptionalism, our fellow citizens share our concerns about the outlaw nature of the Obama regime. The erosion of our military. Intentionally porous borders. The release from custody by the Department of Homeland Security of hundreds of thousands of criminal aliens—including murderers, rapists and robbers—into the general population. Threats to fire federal peace officers if they choose enforcing federal statutes versus obeying Obama’s illegal edicts to stand down in the face of criminal violations.
Then there is the totally corrupt U.S. Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service weaponized to destroy political opposition to the Obama agenda.
Add to this the Obama takeover of the Internet.
The media will say this is scaremongering, but there is plenty to be scared about. The threats to our liberty have never been greater.
I have never been prouder of the NRA members than I am today. Time and time again, you have come through to save American liberty.With all of the threats to the very existence of the country we grew up in and love, there is a larger mission for NRA. It means working not only to protect our gun rights, but to protect against the wider assaults on our country, our culture, our heritage and our future.
With all of the threats to the very existence of the country we grew up in and love, there is a larger mission for NRA. It means working not only to protect our gun rights, but to protect against the wider assaults on our country, our culture, our heritage and our future.
We have to work like never before to get others to understand what the country is facing. We must rally every one of our fellow 100 million gun owners. They look to us to protect all of our freedoms. NRA has to lead the way. We must be their voice.
In this political fight for the survival of our nation, we must get stronger every day on the ground, we must get stronger financially, and we must get stronger in our voice and communication.
We must be everywhere in the firearms and hunting culture—own it with our voice, events, energy and passion. We must communicate with every American owning a firearm.
In the next 18 months, it is imperative that we stay unified and laser-focused to defeat those who would take down the Second Amendment.
We must warn about the threats to American values so people all over the country will agree that NRA tells the truth when no one else has the guts to say it.
That’s why I’m asking you to work with me between now and Election Day 2016 to defeat Clinton, elect a president who will respect and uphold the Constitution and, finally, put an end to Obama’s relentless assaults against American freedom.
I’m asking you to look deeply into your heart and make a renewed commitment to winning these battles and this war. And it starts with your decision right now to extend your membership, become a Life member, or upgrade the latter to Endowment, Patron or Benefactor. And I ask you to sign up friends and family members to join NRA.
I’m counting on your strength, your courage and your commitment. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for everything you have done and will do to preserve our cherished rights and freedoms.
