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Remarks by Wayne LaPierre at the 137th Annual Meeting of Members, Louisville, Kentucky, May 17, 2008

Saturday, May 17, 2008

That film sums it up.

 

The Second Amendment is facing a perfect storm.

 

In fact, the worst I’ve seen in thirty years.

 

It's hard to believe

it's been that long ...

 

I came to work at NRA

in 1978.

 

And it’s taken three decades to crystallize

for me:

 

Behind every

anti-gun law...

or candidate ...

or editorial...

or movie ...

 

is a ruling class

that can’t stand you taking responsibility

for your own safety.

 

The ruling class

wants you to believe...

that they'll protect you...

 

So that you

are dependent

on them.

 

I’ve seen and

heard ‘em all.

 

Time,

 

Newsweek,

 

60 Minutes,

 

Sarah Brady,

 

Pete Shields,

 

Dianne Feinstein,

 

Peter Rodino,

 

Howard Metzenbaum

 

Michael Moore

 

Rebecca Peters

 

Chuck Schumer

 

Rosie O’Donnell

 

the UN

 

George Soros

 

the media brand conglomerates.

They’re the

ruling classes

that all believe

the same...

elite...

conceit --

 

You shouldn't protect yourself.

 

Government should.

 

But we know...

there’s a little problem with that...

 

They don’t give a

damn about you!

 

They couldn’t care less about your safety.

 

That’s the

bald-faced truth...

 

that's the one constant that runs across

all the ruling classes --

and it's killing the Second Amendment.

 

Take the political

ruling class that fights your Right to Carry.

 

They say you can’t

take responsibility

for your own safety, because good people carrying guns

turn into maniacs.

 

They say guns make good people

do bad things.

 

And so the

political ruling class never empowers you ...

 

but always empowers themselves ...

 

to keep you

powerless!

 

Same thing for the corporate ruling class,

 

the legislative

ruling class,

 

the media ruling class ...

 

they all say

you can't be trusted

with responsibility
for your own protection.

 

But at the same time,

they abdicate

their responsibility

to protect you.

 

They refuse to prosecute and put away the

bad guys.

 

And so the jailhouse revolving door spins:

 

Take ‘em in.

 

Turn ‘em out.

 

And it’s open season on the rest of us.

 

Hurricane Katrina should’ve taught

this nation

that the elites

who say they’ll

protect everyone ...

 

won’t protect anyone!

 

Those hurricane victims couldn’t count on

police,

electricity,

or phones...

you couldn't call 911...

 

But they could count on the looters,

 

and the rapists,

 

and the robbers...

 

who all arrived

right on time.

 

And that’s when the ruling class ordered troops door to door

to confiscate the

good guys’ firearms —

at gunpoint

when they needed their guns the most!

 

We got footage of it.

 

Kicking in doors.

 

Body-slamming

70-year-old grandmothers to the floor of their kitchens.

 

 

WHERE'S THE OUTRAGE!

 

When the New Orleans ruling class

realized how bad it

made ‘em look...

 

they conspired with the media ruling class...

 

to bury the story.

 

 

So Americans

never saw video footage

of the first...
forced...

gun confiscation

in American history.

 

 

But if a cop roughs up an armed criminal,

they’ll run THAT video over and over and over ‘til you’re sick of it.

 

And we all know why...

 

the ruling class

doesn't like street cops either!

 

 

Let's talk about the legislative ruling class that fights our

Castle Doctrine laws,

like you have here in Kentucky.

 

Because they say --

if you had

full responsibility

for your own protection...

 

well...

 

you might take

unfair advantage

of the armed thugs

jacked up on meth

who just smashed out your patio door

with a pavestone!

 

No...

 

the legislative ruling class has rules

YOU have to follow —

before you can use deadly force against the armed thugs
ransacking

your living room.

 

You know,

I've talked to real victims of home invasion,

and they all say the same thing.

 

There’s a split second of

total terror that spells

life or death for you.

 

But the ruling class says you gotta take time during that split second to think through

their checklist

of all their options

you gotta exhaust

before you can

lawfully use force against the

armed intruders...

who are now at your bedroom door!

 

You have to

jump out a window,

or run out the door,

or hide under the bed,

or find some other way to retreat before you can hurt the bad guys.

 

Now that sounds like a really good law —

if you’re a home-invading criminal.

 

But the NRA’s Castle Doctrine says

your home

is your castle!

 

You...

don’t...

have...

to...

retreat.

 

You...

can...

stand...

your...

ground!

 

NRA had to fight

the same

"elite conceit"...

 

when the

airlines ruling class refused to let pilots be armed after 9/11.

 

Here's why.

 

And they

actually said this:

 

Because

with a gun...

 

a pilot might be --

dangerous!

 

BUT WAIT,

HE’S FLYING THE PLANE!

 

DOESN'T THE PILOT ALREADY HAVE EVERY PASSENGER’S LIFE IN HIS OR HER  HANDS?

 

With the same

"elite conceit",

America’s

corporate ruling class says employees can’t take responsibility for their own protection.

 

Factory workers,

pizza delivery guys,

convenience store clerks,

taxi cab drivers,

assembly line employees —

 

the corporate elites

deny all of them a firearm for self-defense.

 

Rich corporate lawyers don't care about invisible 2nd- and 3rd- shift

night workers who

come and go

in pitch-black

parking lots.

 

But a self-defense gun "securely encased"

in your vehicle?

 

They’re fired on the spot.

 

The elites say

gun bans in workers’ parking lots creates a sense of safety.

 

But no one is safer,

except a criminal

in that parking lot.

 

Two truths

must be told here.

 

The first truth is,

almost no workplace homicide is

worker-on-co-worker.

 

It’s almost all

armed robbery.

 

The second truth

is that the

corporate ruling class couldn’t care less about these workers.

 

Murdered pizza boys

cab drivers,

and

convenience store clerks are just

collateral damage --

a cost of doing business.

 

And that's how

the corporate

ruling class

negates the

Second Amendment rights of the obedient worker class.

 

I say:

 

No breadwinner

should ever be forced to choose:

 

Do I save my life...

 

or lose my job?

 

The idea that anyone’s safer by giving away their right of

self-protection

is pure fantasy.

 

And it's a

deadly fantasy!

 

But for thirty years the municipal ruling class of Washington, D.C.

has made that

deadly fantasy

the law:

 

guns are banned.

 

Now tell me... 

 

Does an armed homeowner make his home more dangerous?

 

Or do disarmed homeowners make D.C.

more dangerous?

 

I want to meet that D.C.

brainiac who truly believes that when

meth addicts

kick your door

off its hinges at 2 a.m. ...

 

society is better off

if you’re armed with nothing but a phone in one hand,

and a Chia pet

in the other.

 

With reasoning only a third-generation

inbred elite can grasp,

D.C. says citizens

can only seek safety in the supremacy of government,

not the individual.

 

In return,

D.C.’s lawful residents are served up a

daily dose of

bloody gunplay

and violent crime

that's often the

worst in the nation.

 

)

 

Time out here.

 

Most of us instinctively know that ---

 

"if I don’t want to be thirsty,

I drink water."

 

"If I don't

want to be hungry,

I eat food."

 

"And if I don’t

want my family attacked and murdered,

I own a gun!"

 

But D.C. gets the

last one backwards,

which gives murderers a decided advantage over homeowners.

 

Next month,

the Supreme Court will rule on D.C.’s gun ban.

 

But make no mistake:

 

The National Rifle Association will not consider it a victory ...

 

until that day

when the law-abiding residents of

Washington, D.C.

can once again

go out and buy a gun...

 

and

take back their city

from the criminals

and the

municipal ruling class that took it away from them.

 

 

The Big Apple is another place the underclass is denied any role in their personal safety.

 

They’re kept dependent by the billionaire ruling class in the form of

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

 

Listen,

in New York City

only one in ten

felony arrests

ever sees a judge.

 

Only one in a thousand misdemeanor arrests ever gets to a courtroom.

 

And a new epidemic of

home invasions is terrorizing residents across Long Island.

 

But Bloomberg's
not concerned with prosecuting criminals.

 

He’s too busy bankrolling litigation

designed to

take your rights away!

 

Now Bloomberg’s

got Wal-Mart

stigmatizing

lawful gun buyers

by lining them up,

taking their pictures,

and storing them in a database.

 

All ‘cause Wal-Mart wants to put stores in New York City.

 

So thanks to the billionaire ruling class,

Wal-Mart’s

shooting mug shots of

Louisville deer hunters...

so Wal-Mart can

sell baby food and diapers in Queens.

 

Then there’s the breeding grounds of the global ruling class,

the United Nations.

 

Where the pompous sheiks and kings,

and autocrats,

and sultans,

and czars,

and despots,

and billionaire tyrants like George Soros...

 

are determined to

dumb-down American freedom to a global standard of no freedom.

 

This club of

global thugs says...

 

not only do individuals

have no right of

self-defense ...

 

the UN says any nation that condones

gun rights ...

is committing a

human rights violation!

 

So,

the UN wants to force

on the world...

what D.C.

forces on its citizens.

 

You give up your guns... and hope government protects you.

 

And here's what this is really all about.

 

If they can institutionalize all this

at the UN,

then they have permanent funding...

 

for a

permanent campaign...

 

to establish a

permanent system ...

 

to disarm and

sub-ja-gate citizens.

 

And we all know where that leads.

 

Wars kill soldiers.

 

But governments ...

kill civilians.

 

Like the gassing of Kurds,

 

the slaughter in Rwanda,

 

the butchery in Libya,

 

the killing fields of Cambodia,

Uganda,

Iraq,

and Iran.

 

In the last century alone 56 million civilians

were disarmed,

rounded up,

and murdered by their own governments.

 

It’s happening today

with the half million dead and millions more dying in Burma...

 

where the

military regime has intercepted

international aid

to save the

regime's friends --

and starve its enemies.

 

That's the end result

of trusting the

global ruling class

to protect you.

 

Of all the places

where good people

are denied the right to protect themselves

against bad people...

 

probably the

most tragic results

have come

at the hands of the academic ruling class

at our schools

and colleges.

 

The Safe School Initiative by the

United States 

Secret Service

studied three dozen major attacks at schools.

 

Among the

important findings --

 

now listen to this...

 

1. Students

almost always know

an attack is coming.

 

In one case,

two dozen kids

waited on a mezzanine

to watch --

one even brought a camera.

 

2. In reality,

Cops stop only

ONE out of four attacks.

 

Three out of

four attacks

are stopped by a

teacher or administrator,

because most are over in less than 15 minutes.

 

And lastly,

in 93% of the cases,

the attacker

behaved weird enough

prior to an attack...

to cause concern from teachers and students.

 

Friends,

these facts clearly argue for armed security

in our schools.

 

Look,

we put a perimeter of armed protection

around our

banks and airports,

and sporting events

and concerts.

 

Politicians,

and celebrities,

and rock stars 

lavish themselves with armed bodyguards — and nobody says a word.

 

So why do we deny the

same level of protection for our children

in our schools?

 

I know I'm going to get vilified for even

bringing it up.

 

But you know what?

 

I ...

DON'T...

CARE!

 

 

 

I’m fed up ...

that we as a nation...

seem willing to tolerate some number of students slaughtered each year...

as the

price we gotta pay

for the

academic ruling class failure called

“Gun-Free Zones.”

 

A “Gun-Free-Zone”

for students

is just a

Risk-Free Zone”

for crazed killers!

 

The fact is,

we can never predict where evil will strike.

 

But we can

always stop it.

 

With a

self-defense firearm

in the hands of a

lawful,

competent person.

 

We’ve seen it

time after time:  

 

The only thing that stops a bad guy

with a gun ...

 

is a good guy

with a gun.

 

Instant responders

are always better than

first responders.

 

Because

instant responders

can prevent

the kind of tragedy

that first responders

can only clean up.

 

Look,

we built this nation

with the

spunk and guts

of our own citizens

in our local communities.

 

It’s time to do it again...

and give America’s children every measure of security we can.

 

First...

colleges and universities should honor

concealed carry permits.

 

Let me be clear:

 

The NRA does not encourage firearms on a college campus

or anywhere else.

 

But we

discourage

prohibitions

on a college campus

that don’t exist

outside that campus.

 

Any adult who has the character and training

for a Right to Carry

permit...

 

doesn’t lose those qualities by

crossing the street.

 

That’s why everywhere

Right to Carry

is respected

OFF campus...

 

Right to Carry should be respected ON campus.

 

 

For elementary

through high school...

national policy

should empower

every local school to design its own 

security strategy.

 

Think about the resources we've got

at our disposal.

 

We've got:

veterans,

 

police,

 

former police,

 

off-duty police,

 

reserve officers,

 

former FBI...

 

secret service...

 

and other people in the community who are certified proficient with firearms--

 

including parents, teachers,

and volunteers with Right to Carry permits.

 

This country was built on volunteerism.

 

Since our nation

was born,

our communities

have come together

to provide for the common good

from barn raising to bucket brigades.

 

It’s time to

do it again!

 

And send the message loud and clear:

 

Armed intruders at our schools will be met with

armed resistance!

 

We...

will...

protect...

our...

children!

 

 

Yes,

we can count on massive resistance

from the

elite of the elite --

the media ruling class.

 

But the same is true of Right to Carry,

 

Castle Doctrine,

 

Worker Protection,

 

Armed Pilots,

 

Eddie Eagle,

 

and every other

NRA initiative.

 

And yet,

in the face of the

media ruling class --

 

the most powerful communications machinery

humankind

has ever known ...

 

their lies are being increasingly

caught and exposed,

 

turned off,

 

and

trashed --

by Americans like the people in this room.

 

No matter how many billions of dollars worth of subtle spoon-feeding by the "elite conceit" ...

 

more and more,

Americans

spit it back  daily

in their faces.

 

Every public opinion poll comes down on

our side.

 

More Americans

agree with us

than with them.

 

Name any researcher — Gallup,

Roper,

Zogby,

Roiters --

 

year after year,

more Americans

say the

NRA speaks for them ...

 

than does the Democratic Party,

the Republican Party,

the U.S. Congress,

or

The New York Times.

 

In other words,

if you ask Americans who really “gets it

about our country...

 

more Americans

raise their hands

for the NRA

than for any other group.

 

 

Ladies and gentlemen,

though we face a

perfect storm,

I’m more and more convinced in my

30th year on the job...

 

that the only real

true,

genuine,

and undefeatable

ruling class ...

 

is represented

in this room today!

 

the members of this proud and mighty National Rifle Association of America!

 

And I'm proud to be one of you!

 

Thank you very much.

 

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Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.