by Dave Workman
Senior Editor
In a rousing speech before more than two thousand National Rifle Association members who attended the annual members’ meeting in Indianapolis, Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre declared that gunowners “have always been the good guys.”
He wasted no time in launching an attack on billionaire anti-gunner Michael Bloomberg, who launched his $50 million high-profile campaign called “Everytown for Gun Safety” about a week before the NRA convened. The organization’s response to Bloomberg’s threat to beat the NRA was met with a short video that launched an effort to get $25 contributions from NRA members to fight back.
“And let there be absolutely no doubt about it,” LaPierre said. “We will be there at the polls in November, and in the November after that, and we won’t rest until November of 2016—not until we’ve stood up as America’s good guys and taken back the White House.”
The remark brought a roar of applause from an audience that was obviously tired of the present administration and the course it has set for America.
“We are the good guys,” he said, “good, decent, honest men and women who look at the world around us, shake our heads in sad disbelief, and can’t help but wonder, ‘What in the world has gone wrong with our country?’”
Moments later, he observed, “What does it say about a country that demands we submit to the powerful elites, surrender our values and believe in nothing? Because we are surrounded by a world where the yesmen turn their heads when the boss breaks the rules; where cowards don’t help the fallen elderly man and walk right past the crying child who’s clearly too young to be there alone.
“The character of our nation—all of our values—are at risk,” he continued. “These aren’t old values. They aren’t new values. They are core freedoms— the core values that have always defined us as a nation: Our right to speak, our right to gather, our right to privacy. The freedom to work, and practice our religion and raise our families the way we see fit.”
LaPierre warned the audience that these words and beliefs will bring mockery and derision from the “media elites.”
“They’ll call our notion of individual freedom ‘out of date’,” he said. “They’ll joke about us and the millions like us who still believe in core American values, and they’ll say we’re oldfashioned and out of step in these international, global community times.
“We aren’t out of date,” LaPierre observed. “We aren’t out of step. We are Americans.”
While LaPierre was inside speaking, outside and a couple of blocks from the convention center, a crowd of antigunners that some estimates placed at about 200, gathered to hear Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America–a group that has been melded into the “Everytown” project thanks to Bloomberg’s financing–and several others preach about gun control.
The Watts group was dwarfed in comparison to what the NRA attracted to the Indianapolis Convention Center on just that one day, a sunny Saturday that produced shirtsleeve temperatures.
TGM spoke to several people who came from all over the map. They were impressed by the convention and by the welcome atmosphere shown by the city. By some estimates, the NRA convention pumped more than $50 million into the local economy, and local restaurants and hotels were jammed.
TGM observed several citizens openly carrying inside the convention center, which allows firearms, and there were no incidents reported.
Meanwhile, LaPierre called the NRA “America’s national movement to restore our core values and preserve our individual freedom.”
“It’s our national campaign to save and take back a great country,” he said during his speech. “Ours is a national movement, sweeping the country in homes and churches and coffee houses and PTA meetings; a movement building toward the coming November elections, fought on every street and corner of this country, where good Americans live and work and volunteer and campaign.
“The political and media elites intend to finish the job,” LaPierre cautioned, “to fulfill their commitment—their dream—of fundamentally transforming America into an America you won’t recognize. But mark my words. The NRA will not go quietly into that night. We will fight.”
From all indications, they’ve got one coming. Bloomberg’s so-called “grassroots” effort was taken seriously while at the same time dismissed as anything remotely resembling true grassroots. With a $50 million war chest, it is producing slick public messages and paying for lots of travel.
Only time will tell if LaPierre’s promise of a pitched battle will overcome what appears to be a daunting big-money challenge.
“If we join together as good and decent strong-hearted Americans,” he said, “if we rise up and resist, we will help lead this nation through the dark night to the dawn of an America renewed in truth, justice, opportunity, hope and individual liberty for all.”
