NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre is on he warpath against media elites.
By Dave Workman | Senior Editor
Americans are sad, “ not because we fear something is going wrong, but because we know something already has gone wrong.
“That’ why more and more Americans are buying firearms and ammunition, not to cause trouble but because America already is in trouble.”
So said Wayne La Pierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association in a speech before the Conservative Political Action Conference that brought enthusiastic applause when he accused the mainstream media of deliberate dishonesty.
In his nearly 20-minute-long speech to a crowded room, LaPierre warned that “Political dishonesty and media dishonesty have linked together. They’ve joined forces to misinform and deceive the American public.”
“Let’s be straight about this,” he continued. “The political and media elites are lying to us. You know they are. They lie bills into law. They pass legislation they haven’t even read and yet eagerly go on and defend them on television.”
It was a message of defiance to an audience eager to listen.
LaPierre opened his remarks by observing that America is in trouble. He sad NRA members across the country “have made a real difference in defending this nation (and) making our freedoms safer.”
But there is trouble afoot and more on the horizon, he intimated.
“Freedom has never needed our defense more than now,” he told the CPAC audience. “Almost everywhere you look, something has gone wrong. You feel it in your heart, you know it in your gut. Something in our country has gone wrong.”
LaPierre said people no longer trust the government, and that poll after poll proves it.
“We don’t trust the government because government, itself, has proven unworthy of our trust,” he said.
It’s the kind of speech one might anticipate from LaPierre when he addresses the NRA annual meeting of members at the late April convention in Indianapolis. He hit all the high notes and never missed a beat, and the audience loved it, particularly when he alluded the media’s treatment of the NRA.
“They’ve never been honest about the NRA,” he insisted. “They hate us.”
He accused the mainstream press of “intentional corruption of the truth” and called it “an abomination.”
“One of America’s greatest threats,” he said, “is a national news media that fails to provide a level playing field for the truth.”
He brought another round of applause when he told the audience how they know the media is lying: “They still call themselves journalists.”
Looking toward the November mid-term elections, he cautioned that powerful, wealthy elites will have their sights on every House and Senate seat in an effort to reshape America to something that gun owners will not recognize.
LaPierre said the Second Amendment “separates us from every other country on earth.”
“It makes us stronger than other countries,” he said. “It makes us better than other countries.”
He told the audience that there is “no greater freedom than the right to survive and protect our families with all the rifles, shotguns and handguns we want.”
In order to protect that freedom, Americans will have to get involved and be prepared to fight.
“This election is going to be a bare knuckle street fight,” LaPierre predicted. “This election is going to be won or lost on every street, on every corner, in every coffee shop, in every store, in every church in America where every NRA member lives and works and volunteers and campaigns.”
He encouraged everyone to join the NRA and stand together to prevent the loss of freedom, especially firearms freedom.
“The NRA will not go quietly into the night,” LaPierre vowed. “We will fight. I promise you that.”
