By Dave Workman | Senior Editor
NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre addresses the 147th Annual Meeting of members. (Dave Workman photo)
National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre delivered a fiery — some might call it pure boilerplate — speech to a crowded members’ meeting in Dallas during which he urged gun owners to “stand and fight like hell to save our great nation.”
It was one of the highlights of a record-setting NRA turnout that drew more than 87,000 members to the north Texas metropolis.
“The NRA will do everything we can—devote every resource we can muster— but we can’t do it alone,” LaPierre said. “We need every gun owner, every citizen who cares about American freedom, to stand with us. Stand and fight like hell to save our great nation.”
It was vintage LaPierre, with the veteran NRA chief using news clips from his confrontations with reporters over the years to underscore his prediction that if Democrats re-take Capitol Hill in November, there will be an all-out effort to destroy the Donald Trump presidency.
“Gun owners—every one of America’s 100 million law-abiding gun owners— had better listen up, buckle up, and get to work to win this election,” he warned. “If we lose the House and Senate, the dystopian media and political elites will destroy President Trump. They’ll block every judicial appointment, and every pro-freedom measure. And then they’ll seize the White House and come after us with everything they’ve got. Come after you, your guns, your freedom.”
It was a speech in which LaPierre declared, “For years, I’ve warned Americans about the decay of our society, the threats to our individual freedoms, the growing contagion of the ever-increasing violent Left and the anti-American dream of so many national democrats and their ‘running buddies’ in the media to warp our nation into a European-style socialist state.”
“But over the last three decades, I’ve been right,” he said. “Everything I have predicted and warned gun owners about has either come true or is happening now.”
LaPierre, who has been the face and voice of the NRA for more than two decades, turned his sights on anti-gun politicians. He warned the audience that the 2018 midterm elections could be a make-or-break event for the organization, and the Second Amendment.
He spoke to members one day after appearing on stage with Trump before another huge audience at the annual Leadership Forum.
Elsewhere inside the massive Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, tens of thousands of NRA members of all ages strolled through the crowded aisles of the exhibit hall. They were looking at new guns and gear, from pint-sized .22-caliber rifles for young shooters to high-caliber custom rifles for big and dangerous game. They were examining pricey hunting and competition shotguns, talking about reloading, checking out hunting clothing and accessories, knives and camping equipment, and talking about rights.
It was a stark contrast to anti-gun-rights demonstrations held near the convention center.
