Paranoid and baseless accusations that Democrats are trying to destroy the Second Amendment is nothing new for Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association. This is the man who, after the January Tuscon shooting claimed six lives, rejected President Obama’s offer to come to the White House for a closed door meeting to discuss solutions to gun violence in America.
“Why should I or the N.R.A. go sit down with a group of people that have spent a lifetime trying to destroy the Second Amendment in the United States?” he asked. LaPierre conveniently ignores the fact Obama is a supporter of the Second Amendment who, much to the chagrin of his liberal base, has actually expanded gun rights.
But as Crooks and Liars points out, you just can’t please some people. Last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida, LaPierre took his paranoia about the president to new heights, claiming that the fact that Obama has not pursued gun control actually proves he’s orchestrated a “massive conspiracy” to take away guns:
LAPIERRE: They’ll say gun owners — they’ll say they left them alone…In public, the president will remind us that he’s put off calls from his party to renew the old Clinton ban, that he hasn’t pushed for new gun control laws…The president will offer the Second Amendment lip service and hit the campaign trail saying he’s actually been good for the Second Amendment. But it’s a big fat stinking lie!…It’s all part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment in our country…Before the president was even sworn into office, they met and they hatched a conspiracy of public deception to try to guarantee his re-election in 2012.
LaPierre’s iron-clad logic is that Obama’s failure to take any action against gun owners in his first term means he is conspiring to launch an all-out assault on their rights in his second term. Equally ridiculous is LaPierre’s suggestion that he somehow has secret knowledge that the president “makes fun of gun-owners” when he’s in private or had a conspiratorial meeting with advisers before he took office where he plotted the Second Amendment’s downfall.
“Our freedom is at risk at this election like never before,” LaPierre claimed at the beginning of his speech, using the same fear-mongering the NRA has depended on since Obama took office to enhance their own membership and financial contributions.
It’s unclear, however, why anyone should believe the NRA’s paranoia. By LaPierre’s logic, Obama also has a secret plan to launch a manned mission to Uranus, convert the nation to Pastafarianism, and wipe out the pink flamingo. After all, Obama has done exactly as much to accomplish these three goals as he has done to undermine gun owners’ rights.
NFTOS
