Standing
guard
NRA’s Greatest Strength Is Our Members
In all the years I have been with NRA, I have never been so proud of our membership or felt so humble in your presence as during my travels in the months and weeks before this election.
NRA. We are a solemn partnership; a bond between individual Americans who are always willing to fight for Freedom, and those of us privileged to work on your behalf on the frontlines of liberty.
We will never let you down, just as you will never cease to do the most important part—petitioning government and communicating with others to energize the majority of Americans who agree with us. Poll after poll show that a huge percentage of our fellow citizens believe they have a Right to Keep and Bear Arms. That is why gun-banning politicians are talking our talk, while they continue to walk their oppressive walk.
At one campaign stop, an NRA member said, “I wish Chuck Heston were here.” I didn’t even think about it when I answered, “He is with us.” When I looked around at all those wonderful people I saw Freedom fighters—the heart and soul of our uniquely American culture of liberty. Chuck Heston’s spirit was with them in their passion to protect our traditions of Freedom.
At every single stop, NRA Institute for Legislative Action Executive Director Chris Cox and I were deeply touched by the trust, the commitment and love of NRA members for our organization and our cause. Everywhere, people responded with contributions for the battles ahead, many expressing similar thoughts, “I know NRA will be needing this.”
One common theme ran like a wide, strong river: people are angry that radical political agendas have melded with equally radical media coverage.
“Coverage” is certainly the right word. As in giving credence to a blatant lie. The self-appointed “watchdogs” in the media are now running with the wolves to take down our Freedom like never before.
We Americans are idealists. We hope that politicians will be honest. We hope that there is such a concept as media neutrality; and that a politician’s record would define his views.
When a candidate for high office can “cover” his entire record with a totally false claim, and never once be challenged by the mainstream media, something precious has died in America.
With the advent of the Internet and of conservative talk radio, the corporate media elites have become more and more transparent. Perhaps that explains their rabid transition from any sense of fairness to their outward expressions of hatred for basic, old-time American values.
Decent, ordinary Americans find their truth from a remarkable array of sources in talk radio and on the Internet—sources far more reliable than the elite national media. Hard digging bloggers have filled the void of real reporting in the old media.
Former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, interviewed on the Hugh Hewlett radio show, referred to blogs as “cancerous,” saying, “I’m a free speech absolutist, but I think that at the same time, we have to have free speech in some kind of a context.” (emphasis added)
In 1996, Brokaw said, “I also believe strongly that the Internet works best when there are gatekeepers. When there are people making determinations and judgments about what information is relevant and factual and useful.”
Those chilling thoughts give an insight into battles we will be called upon to fight in the near future—battles to save not just the Second Amendment, but the First Amendment. The two are entwined as the essential keys to our liberty. One does not exist without the other.
With Barack Obama’s campaign, we saw a total disregard for open and free speech. Broadcasters that ran truthful, accurate NRA Political Victory Fund ads were threatened with legal action. Internet sites critical of that candidate were attacked and shut down by the massive use of spam buttons. Talk radio shows were inundated with threatening calls demanding that guests be denied the opportunity to speak.
Truth—just plain facts—were labeled as “smears.”
As a result of the political shifts in Congress, these attacks on open discourse will be expanded. There will be a major effort to “regulate” the Internet. And there will be direct attacks on the NRA as an American institution. Given these threats, individual NRA members are asking what they can do to help us safeguard the future of our Freedom. The immediate answer is to sign up at least one new member.
Our power is in our numbers, but it is more than that. NRA members possess something critically important, a willingness to fight no matter what the odds.
If each of us does that one thing—sign up one patriotic American who cares as much about Freedom as we do—we can be prepared to win victories in the uncertain future.
And I promise you this: in the coming months and years, as individual NRA members fighting together through our great institution, we will be victorious.
Our greatest strength is you. Together with the partnership that is the NRA, we will hold the line against every threat from every quarter. Attacks on the Second Amendment will be stopped. Attacks on the First Amendment will be checked.
Together, we are the one force in America that can provide the fortitude to keep Americans a free people.
