Hours after leaders of the National Rifle Association told members gathered in Louisville that Hillary Rodham Clinton would destroy the right to keep and bear arms, Clinton was in Fort Lauderdale, telling the Trayvon Martin Foundation’s “Circle of Mothers” that she will “not pander to the gun lobby.”
Clinton has been using the NRA as a whipping boy for months, and the organization’s endorsement of Donald Trump seems to have fired up her rhetoric even more.
Quoted by CBS News, Clinton told the Florida crowd, “Unlike Donald Trump, I will not pander to the gun lobby and we will not be silenced and we will not be intimidated. As long as children anywhere are being killed by gun violence, we will keep fighting.”
She accused Trump of wanting to put guns in every school classroom, thus endangering children, a popular ploy with gun prohibitionists.
Clinton claimed that, “33,000 people die from guns every year.” That statistic is misleading, however, because it combines all firearms fatalities, including suicides, accidents, self-defense and actual murders. Indeed, roughly two-thirds of gun-related deaths annually are suicides, not the result of criminal acts.
But up in Louisville, NRA leaders Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox fired up their audience at the 145th annual members’ meeting by drawing a distinction between political elites and average citizens.
Clinton has enjoyed armed security for many years.
The NRA has launched a campaign declaring that the organization is “Freedom’s Safest Place,” and that appears to have struck the right chord with NRA members. Thousnds are gathered in Louisville for the convention.
Cox reminded the audience that, “Where others have talked, you’ve fought. Where others have lost, you’ve won. We’re the most fearsome grassroots army in the history of freedom.”
H/T Seattle Gun Rights Examiner
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