"National Conversation" Is One-Sided

By Wayne LaPierre, NRA Executive Vice President

The new watchword for the firearm-confiscation movement in America is “national conversation”—a term that takes on ominous meaning for millions of peaceable, innocent gun owners, especially in light of President Barack Obama’s threat to institute new, draconian gun bans and universal gun-owner registration schemes.

With the mass murder of school children in Newtown, Conn., by a clearly deranged killer, the nature of this “conversation” has been defined by the key figures in the gun-ban movement—from the president, to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, to the Brady Campaign, to literally hundreds of editorial writers.

Much of the “conversation” in the media has been a new level of hatred against gun owners, the Second Amendment and those who defend the right to keep and bear arms, especially the NRA.

A commentary by retired opinion writer Donald Kaul in the Des Moines Register provides a hint of the real meaning of this “conversation.” Here are Kaul’s demands:

“Repeal the Second Amendment, the part about guns anyway. …

“Declare the NRA a terrorist organization and make membership illegal. Hey! We did it to the Communist Party, and the NRA has led to the deaths of more of us than American Commies ever did. (I would also raze the organization’s headquarters, clear the rubble and salt the earth, but that’s optional.) Make ownership of unlicensed assault rifles a felony. If some people refused to give up their guns, that ‘prying the guns from their cold, dead hands’ thing works for me.”

If that last part of the “conversation” sounds unhinged, try this from the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, who was the gun control majordomo in the Bill Clinton White House:

“Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option.”

Confiscation. There it is. Finally, the end game has been spelled out by someone in power. No one in the gun-ban crowd has denied it. Forcible government taking of constitutionally protected private property is now just part of the “conversation.”

“Conversation” means they dictate and gun owners obey.

Dan Gross of the Brady Campaign has bragged that “… the national conversation about common sense solutions to gun violence continues to gain unprecedented momentum.” (Emphasis added.)

Creating hatred for NRA members is a major part of Gross’s “national conversation.” He praised radical journalist Jason Whitlock, who wrote:

“I believe the NRA is the new KKK. And that the arming of so many black youths, and loading up our community with drugs, and then just having an open shooting gallery, is the work of people who obviously don’t have our best interests [at heart].”

Here’s another example from the “gun-banner” blog, which quotes the Obama 2012 platform stating: “We believe in an honest, open national conversation about firearms.” Those words are followed with this:

“As a violence policy advocate I support having reasoned discourse about common sense gun laws that will register and eventually disarm the public. …”

How about this from Scott Blakeman, a left-wing Fox News contributor, as a “conversation” opener:

“The National Rifle Association essentially harbors terrorists, by resisting any attempt to apply sensible regulations on gun use.

“… The President must start the national conversation about gun violence right now.”

But this “conversation” isn’t just about semi-auto rifles. Consider the words of White House confidant, frequent Obama water-carrier and national commentator Bob Beckel:

“The culture of violence with handguns in this country is out of control. … If it was up to me, you’d ban all handguns, every one of them. Burn them. Get rid of them.”

Then there is CNN’s Piers Morgan who said flat-out on his Dec. 3 program, “I’d remove every gun in America. Boom.” That’s the essence of the “national conversation.”

Ask yourself, what is there to talk about? Power for them, and the total, ultimate loss of our liberty for us.

For gun owners—especially for NRA members—when it comes to the Second Amendment, the truth is there is nothing to talk about beyond what the founding fathers intended.

The word “conversation” in normal context means there’s a give and take. But in the context of “gun control,” it will always mean one thing: THEY TAKE, AND WE ARE SUPPOSED TO GIVE.

For at least 50 years—beginning with the birth of the gun control movement in the United States—the gun-banners’ part of the “conversation” about the Second Amendment was universally the same: “The individual right never existed. There is nothing to discuss. It is a fact.”

In their “conversation,” only government had the “right.” That “conversation” from the gun-banners didn’t end when the U.S. Supreme Court twice upheld an individual right to keep and bear arms for all Americans; it just changed. They are now saying the right exists, but government can infringe the Second Amendment into oblivion.

The one-sided conversation will never end, but the facts are on our side. Our part of the conversation is to ask, “What don’t you anti-gun opportunists understand about ‘No’?”

After all, the facts, the law, and the Constitution are clearly on our side. When it comes to the principle of losing freedom, there is nothing to talk about. We must stand and fight.