Posted on 05/17/2006 3:20:29 PM PDT by Ellesu
Ad Campaign Begins Tomorrow, NRA Reacts to Hurricanes Katrina, Rita:
The National Rifle Association is fired up.
ABC News has learned that the powerful gun group will launch a new campaign on Thursday when it convenes its annual convention in Milwaukee and demand that police chiefs and mayors pledge to never confiscate weapons from law-abiding citizens in the wake of disasters such as hurricanes or terrorist attacks.
"We are going to ask every mayor and every police chief in America to take a pledge that they will never go door-to-door confiscating firearms from law-abiding citizens," Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA, told ABC News in an exclusive interview airing this evening on "World News Tonight."
"We're also going to go to state legislatures and Congress to pass legislation to make it a federal and a state crime for anyone that gives those orders and carries them out," he added.
LaPierre said the issue resonates with gun owners.
"The lesson of New Orleans is all the people that said the police, the government would protect you could not be trusted. All the politicians that said, 'We'll be there,' couldn't keep that promise," LaPierre said. "Citizens were completely on their own against robbers, against looters, and if they didn't have a firearm they were completely defenseless against the bad guys."
New York Lawmakers Object
The NRA, one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in Washington, said its members are outraged by stories of rampant gun confiscation by New Orleans law enforcement in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Louisiana law enforcement officials said widespread firearms confiscation was not an official order, and they dispute the NRA's claim of how widespread the practice was during the hurricane disasters.
Gun control advocates greeted the news with outrage.
"This shows the NRA at its worst, at its most extreme," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a longtime advocate of gun control. "To put handcuffs around police officers who are doing their jobs for some crazy way-out-there view that police officers want to confiscate guns of law-abiding citizens is to make a mistake. If I were Mayor Bloomberg or [New York] Police Chief [Ray] Kelly, or any other law enforcement officer, I'd say to the NRA, 'Make my day.'"
The NRA intends to make this a major issue in the midterm elections this November. The NRA said that starting in October, it would buy television time in targeted states to run an NRA television show that will include testimonies from Louisiana gun owners about gun confiscation.
Now you folks are seeing why I don't support the NRA any more... They are "asking" for the lawmakers to take a "pledge"???? Are they kidding????
We are talking about a body of folks who betray the pledge of allegiance and their oath of office on a regular basis. You think they would honor a pledge to the NRA above those other pledges? If so, I have some swamp lan....err... prime real estate for sale.....
that promise would last about as long as a pledge to abide by a term limit.
The situation in New Orleans where "law enforcement" were confiscating firearms from lawful owners made "law enforcement" into criminals ... PERIOD!
I am suprised that some citizens did not treat these "peace officers" as criminals coming to rob from them.
police chiefs and mayors pledge to never confiscate weapons from law-abiding citizens in the wake of disasters such as hurricanes or terrorist attacks.
"We are going to ask every mayor and every police chief in America to take a pledge that they will never go door-to-door confiscating firearms from law-abiding citizens," Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA, told ABC News in an exclusive interview airing this evening on "World News Tonight."
What a Crock!! this is just another scam to raise Money...
You can bet we will all get a call from the NRA in the next few Days asking for donations to "Protect our rights to keep and bear Arms.
Bull Crap! I am sick and tired of the NRA what a bunch of Loosers!!!
I asked them the last time they called What Anti-Gun Law have the Stopped?? what Anti-Gun Law have the Recinded??? Answer NONE Nada ZIP....
They Keep collecting Money and the Anti-Gun Laws keep being Passed.
Let them identify the Top TEN Demorats that want Gun Controll and work to get them removed from Office.
I want some Value for My Money. Not some stupid Gun Magazine.
Screw the NRA.
Save your Money and Buy more Guns and Bullets.
And practice, preactice, practice. Ammo turns money into skill.
Precisely. the lawmakjers need to be told and there need to be examples made of those who have betrayed their preomises- the NRA included.
If the NRA can get them to pledge not to take weapons, that's good. It's one check on the power of government. I'm troubled by the lack of concern about rights Republican Conservatives have long heralded, in the Barry Goldwater tradition.
in uniform or not.
A most excellent aphorism. I like it, and I'm going to steal it. And all of your guns and ammo can't stop me. :-)
This whole thing is a little bit of NRA style judo. They ask them to do something that any decent human being (which excludes most politicians) would do, and then when they refuse, the NRA uses it against them. I for one like it.
The NRA isn't perfect, but it's what we've got.
John "ban 30-30s" Kerry tried to market himself as a hunter for 2004. If it weren't for the NRA cartoon with the poodle it probably would have worked and Kerry probably would have won. Bloomberg's gun grabbing mayors would be conferencing out of the white house.
JPFO and the GOA are more assertive. Send most of your political contributions to one of them if you think the NRA is too moderate. But 25 bucks a year so the biggest and loudest - if most moderate - advocate for our rights can claim one more voting member is a small price to pay.
A most excellent aphorism. I like it, and I'm going to steal it. And all of your guns and ammo can't stop me. :-)
The credit properly goes to author Boston T. Party, editor and author of Boston's Gun Bible. You'll hear it quoted often at the Appleseed Shoots when BTP is in attendance.
I sort of tend to think that the NRA is the one that does most of the heavy lifting, and JPFO and GOA take a lot of credit for what they do. JPFO and GOA (and RKBA) are pretty small, relatively speakng. IMHO, of course.
Why bother? If the time ever comes when you have to bury your guns, that's the time to take them out and use them.
You two aren't very bright if you think this is the only thing the NRA has been doing since Katrina. The NRA and SAF have been in the forfront in getting the citizen's their guns back from New Orleans authorities. They are also making sure it doesn't happen again by passing laws at the state level so it won't happen again.
The articles have been posted on FR since Katrina but since you two are sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing I can see how you missed all of that. Just check the banglist since the hurricane and see for yourself. The NRA and the lawsuits with the SAF are more than what any other group has done.
archy, you have been here long enough to know what you are saying isn't true. The NRA is passing laws against the confiscation from occurring again. And the penalty is a felony even if it's a law enforcement officer committing the confiscation.
JPFO is listed as an educational group. They don't lobby Washington. No one has been able to tell me what the GOA has ever done on it's own. That's a fact.
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