National Rifle Association (NRA) executive vice president Wayne LaPierre told an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference that “if you don't remember anything else I say today, write this down: this is the most dangerous election of our lifetimes.” He warned that “all of our freedom, all of our rights” are at stake, asking, “Will we save America and our freedom? Will we save the Second Amendment from a second Obama White House?”
LAPIERRE: If you believe in freedom, and if you're as sick and tired of all the lies and schemes and Obama failures as I am, join us and stand up in this great fight. If you don't remember anything else I say today, write this down: this is the most dangerous election in our lifetimes. If Obama wins, we'll go to our graves mourning the freedoms we've lost. This election is all in, all of our freedom, all of our rights, and that means all of you. All in. No one sits this one out. So stand up right now and you tell me, will you defend freedom will all of your might? Come on, stand up. Let them hear you over at the White House. Will we fight to preserve our liberty and keep our nation strong and safe and free? Will we save America and our freedom? Will we save the Second Amendment from a second Obama White House?
LaPierre's warnings were based on his reiterated claim that the White House has not pushed for gun violence prevention measures because it is engaged in a “massive Obama conspiracy” to get re-elected, and then use President Obama's second term to “erase the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights and excise it from the U.S. Constitution.”
LaPierre promised that Obama's purported strategy will not succeed, saying that the NRA is “all-in” for the 2012 elections and promising that “gun owners will be responsible” for Obama's defeat. New research from the American Prospect's Paul Waldman brings such claims from the NRA into question, demonstrating that “the NRA has virtually no impact on congressional elections.”
When LaPierre first asserted the existence of a “massive Obama conspiracy” at Florida's version of CPAC, he was widely mocked by media figures including Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews for what Maddow called “the insane paranoid message from the NRA this year.” Today, LaPierre offered a rejoinder to such criticisms, saying that “the media won't win this election, gun owners will.”
The NRA leader also suggested that President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder had acted “like some South American dictator” with regards to the ATF's failed Operation Fast and Furious,again offering up the baseless conspiracy that the operation had been deliberately designed by the White House to go wrong in order to justify stricter U.S. gun laws.