The King of Guns

This feature appears in the March ‘16 issue of NRA America’s 1st Freedom, one of the official journals of the National Rifle Association.

President Barack Obama apparently thinks he’s the King of Guns. 

Did you see the carefully stage-managed White House press event he hosted on Jan. 5, or the “town hall” production the White House staged to promote Obama’s demands for more gun control two days later? 

To hear Obama speak at either of those events, you’d think he knew everything there is to know about guns.  

As he said at the first event, “I taught constitutional law, I know a little about this—I get it.”

In other words, the King of Guns thinks he knows better than you whether you should be allowed to own a gun. He knows what kinds of guns you can be trusted to own. He knows which ammunition, and how many rounds, you ought to be allowed. He knows all about “smart” guns and why gun owners should embrace technologies designed to not work. 

He somehow knows what all gun owners believe. And he somehow knows what all Americans believe—and wouldn’t you know it, consistent majorities conveniently agree with him, despite what national public opinion polls say. Even the liberal-leaning website Politifact lists 16 lies that have been part of Hillary’s repertoire, all of which are in addition to the few mentioned in this article.

What a joy it must be to rule over people who see the supreme wisdom and benevolence of their leader! 

And because the King of Guns knows so much more than you about how you should live your life, Obama apparently believes that gives him the right to mislead, deceive and even flat-out lie about crime, firearms and the freedom to own them.  

“We Can’t Wait For Congress” ... Or Tolerate The Truth

And that includes lying about what the Second Amendment means—and what he believes it means. For proof of that, just look at the record. 

In 2007, Obama said he believed the D.C. handgun ban was constitutional. He also refused to join a majority of the U.S. Senate in signing a “friend of the court” brief calling on the Supreme Court to rule—as it later did, in the landmark Heller case—that the Second Amendment protects your individual right.

In other words, according to the King of Guns, you have no individual right to keep and bear arms to protect yourself and your family in your own home. And he ought to know: After all, he was a constitutional law professor—and won a Nobel Prize, to boot! 

After the Supreme Court issued its Heller decision, Obama claimed to support its ruling. But when asked about his flip-flop on that question, all his campaign could say was that Obama’s claim that the D.C. gun ban was constitutional was “inartful.” 

Not mistaken. Not wrong. Not even misunderstood. Just “inartful.” In other words, he should have kept his mouth shut. 

Let’s not mince words, here. 

Obama opposes your right to keep and bear arms to protect yourself and your family in your home. His position on Heller proves it. His vote on the Hale Demar bill asserting a right to protect oneself against home invasion proves it. 

He believes the Right to Carry should be abolished nationwide. He said so when he ran for the U.S. Senate. 

He’s endorsed a ban on all handguns. He’s endorsed “Banning the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons” as a “principle” he supports. 

In sum, Barack Obama’s entire career is defined by an outright hostility and abhorrence for your right to keep and bear arms. His positions and votes have been absolutely and unflaggingly consistent on the issue. 

If Barack Obama had his way, you can bet he would ban every firearm he could—and tax, ration, register, database, demonize, declare “unsafe” or “unreasonably dangerous” and regulate out of existence whatever guns he couldn’t ban outright just yet. 

Now, however, Obama turns around and claims, as he did on Jan. 5, “I believe in the Second Amendment. It’s there written on the paper. It guarantees a right to bear arms.” 

Does Obama think the American people are stupid? Does he think we’re not paying attention? Or does he think he can just lie to us again and again? 

Even A King’s Decree Can’t Turn The Truth Into “Lies”

If that’s not enough, Obama had the audacity to lecture Americans on Jan. 5 that “All of us need to demand a Congress brave enough to stand up to the gun lobby’s lies.” 

Let’s get something straight: The NRA doesn’t lie. The NRA tells the truth, no matter how unpopular, how politically incorrect or how much the truth might offend those who fear or hate freedom. 

A week after the unspeakable tragedy at Sandy Hook, for example, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre stood up before the hostile and enraged media elite in Washington, D.C., and called for every school in America to be protected from future attacks by trained, armed police and security professionals. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre said.

The reaction was immediate, screeching disbelief and outrage from the press and politicians. Yet within weeks, schools nationwide were doing exactly what LaPierre suggested. Wayne was right, Americans knew he was right, and they took steps to protect their loved ones. 

LaPierre was also right when he predicted that Obama would simply go around Congress if they refused to impose his gun-ban agenda. All of Obama’s anti-gun executive orders over the past several years prove it. That wasn’t a lie: It was exactly as LaPierre predicted.Let’s get something straight: The NRA doesn’t lie. The NRA tells the truth, no matter how unpopular, how politically incorrect or how much the truth might offend those who fear or hate freedom. 

The NRA doesn’t lie. As the trade publicationLibrary Journal put it decades ago, “The American Library Association and the National Rifle Association lobby are the only ones whose information was considered consistently truthful and reliable by legislators.”

That’s also a big reason why most Americans have a favorable opinion of the NRA. In a recent Gallup poll, 58 percent of Americans had an overall favorable impression of the NRA. In fact, the proportion of Americans with “very favorable” opinions of the NRA was higher than it’s been since Gallup began asking this question in 1989. Americans know they can count on NRA to stand on principle and consistently tell the truth. 

And the reasons are as simple as they are strategic: Beyond being morally wrong and ethically indefensible, lying is counterproductive when the liar is caught and exposed in his lies. Obama ought to know that better than most. 

For a politician who so routinely, reflexively and repeatedly tells the American people things that simply are not true, to accuse the NRA of lying—even in a speech filled with deliberate falsehoods that he knows are falsehoods—takes a king’s ransom worth of gall.

Obama lied to us when he promised us dozens of times that under Obamacare, “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” It was only after Democrats rammed Obamacare through Congress on a party-line vote—following Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s command that “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it”—that the truth came home to roost: Obama was lying to us all along.

In November, Obama told us that the Islamic terrorist group ISIS had been “contained” and was no longer a threat. The next day, Obama’s so-called “junior varsity” ISIS terrorists—who were supposedly “contained” to the Middle East—went to Paris with machine guns and suicide vests and killed 130 innocent people in a series of coordinated attacks. 

Obama lied to us about the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya, where U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, embassy staff and two former Navy seals working for the CIA were murdered by Islamic terrorists on the 11th anniversary of 9/11. So did Hillary Clinton. 

If You Like The King Of Guns, You’ll Love The Queen Of Guns!

Obama and Hillary Clinton tried to tell us the attacks were just a spontaneous, unplanned “response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet”; specifically, a film that attacked the Muslim prophet Muhammad. That was a lie—and they knew it was a lie.

After all, congressional investigators discovered that the very day after the attack, Clinton, who was then Secretary of State, told the Egyptian prime minister, “We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack—not a protest ... we believe the group that claimed responsibility for this was affiliated with al-Qaeda.”

Yet Clinton continued to lie about Benghazi and why those American citizens were murdered, finally throwing up her hands in congressional testimony and wailing, “What difference does it make?” 

In fact, when it comes to lying, Clinton makes Obama look like George Washington. 

She’s lied about her emails. 

She’s lied about “landing under sniper fire” in Bosnia, where even CBS admitted that all she was “dodging” was the truth.

She lied about automatic firearms in the same way Obama did when he claimed that the deranged killer at Sandy Hook used a “fully automatic” rifle. 

Even the liberal-leaning website Politifact lists 16 lies that have been part of Hillary’s repertoire, all of which are in addition to the few mentioned in this article. 

In fact, if you want to keep a running tally, it might be easier to count Hillary’s truthful statements instead of her lies. Because she’s had a lot of practice.

Indeed, even 20 years ago, The New York Times columnist William Safire wrote, “Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our first lady—a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation—is a congenital liar.” 

What Lies And Executive Orders Say About Leaders

It’s not so much the lies, themselves, that are so disturbing. What’s much more jarring about the lying is what it says about the politicians who reflexively, habitually lie. The New York Times columnist William Safire wrote, “Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our first lady—a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation—is a congenital liar.” 

It says that the ends justify the means. It says, “I know better than you what’s good and right and proper for you, and if I have to lie to convince you to do it, I will.”

It’s the same kind of imperious arrogance that leads monarchs to rule by decree—and presidents to declare, “We can’t wait for Congress” ... or “We can’t tolerate the truth” ... or “Those who oppose me are liars”—and the truth be damned. 

And it’s the same bald-faced arrogation of authority and naked will to power that we see among presidents and governors who rule by fiat and diktat through executive orders when elected representatives of the people refuse to bend to those leaders’ demands.

That’s why this year’s elections could mark a turning point in our nation’s history. 

Democrat front-runner Clinton has already vowed that if she becomes president, and Congress refuses to go along with her ban-guns agenda, she will use executive orders just as Obama has done. 

Like Obama, Clinton has also said that the Supreme Court was “wrong” when it ruled in theHeller case that the Second Amendment protects your individual right. Since that was a 5-to-4 split decision—and the next president is likely to appoint three or more justices to the court—a Clinton victory could mean the end of the Second Amendment as we know it. 

In its place we could see a new and uniquely chilling kind of executive overreach and rule-by-decree that hasn’t been seen on this continent since the days of King George. 

With such a grave danger on the horizon, now is no time to take a break in the fight for our Second Amendment-protected freedoms. If you are an NRA member, renew or, better yet, upgrade your membership today. Also, consider making a donation to NRA-ILA, which will use those funds to ensure that pro-gun candidates come out on top in critical elections throughout the country.

Also, tell anyone who will listen—family members, friends, work associates, fellow church members—how truly important this election is to the future of freedom. And if you have the time, consider becoming a volunteer, working to get every possible pro-gun vote to the polls. (Get information at nraila.org/take-action/volunteer.)

If all those who care about our right to keep and bear arms will mobilize and work diligently over the next eight months, January can be a time when we see a White House that is much more friendly to law-abiding American gun owners than what we’ve endured over the past eight years. But if we take our eyes off the prize now, eight years of a Hillary Clinton administration could mean the death of freedom as we know it.