On election night 2016, gun owners across the country breathed a huge sigh of relief knowing that Obama’s eight-year war on our gun rights was over.
Even better was the news that Hillary Clinton would not be our next President!
Most gun owners went to bed that night assuming that for the foreseeable future, gun owners could go on offense in Washington, D.C., working to strengthen our Second Amendment freedoms.
But as we all know now, that wasn’t what happened.
Instead, in the wake of several high profile shootings, the NRA agreed with Senator Feinstein’s efforts to grossly expand the size of the NICS system, leading to passage of FIX-NICS legislation.
This was legislation that Senator Feinstein could not get passed under the Obama Administration, but at the urging of the NRA, was signed into law by President Trump in early 2018.
As a result, countless gun owners are being denied the right to keep and bear arms because their names are being falsely flagged in this system.
Next was the fight over bump-stocks.
Sure, not a lot of gun owners owned one and many gun owners think of them as little more than a novelty item.
But that wasn’t the point, as we all know.
When the NRA agreed with banning bump-stocks, they set a dangerous precedent.
Instead of blaming evil people for mass shootings and the ‘Gun Free Zone’ policies that enable them to carry out such mass carnage, the NRA tacitly agreed with gun-grabbers, blaming firearms accessories for the atrocity.
Now with bump-stocks just a few months away from being made illegal in the country, which accessory will the media and gun-grabbers attack next — especially if we have another mass shooting?
30 round magazines? Collapsible stocks? Where does this end? And with the NRA already signaling their willingness to concede on one accessory, gun-grabbers are salivating at the thought of trying to ban another accessory!
So, far from being on offense, gun owners found themselves on defense in 2017 and early 2018.
Things got much worse in the days following the Valentine’s Day shooting at the Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, that left 17 dead.
Immediately the national media, Bloomberg-backed groups, and radical gun-grabbers in Congress and state legislatures around the country began to demand aggressive gun control.
Some are calling for a repeal of the Second Amendment.
Many want to ban and seize every AR15 in circulation today.
Others are trying to ban ‘high capacity’ magazines, pass mental health screenings as a condition of buying a gun, and more.
But the proposal that has seen the most support — passing into law in eight states as well as the District of Columbia since the Parkland shooting — is referred to as ‘Red Flag Gun Seizure’ legislation.
Depending on final language, ‘Red Flag Gun Seizure’ legislation allows family members, teachers, doctors, law enforcement or others to petition the court to remove someone’s firearms.
The hearings are almost always conducted in an ex-parte fashion, meaning that you would not even be aware that there is a hearing underway until it’s over!
You would have no ability to make your own defense, bring a lawyer, question your accusers, or provide witnesses of your own!
Gone are the days of innocent until proven guilty.
Once a judge issues a ‘Red Flag Gun Seizure’ order against you, you would be declared guilty by judicial fiat, have all of your firearms confiscated, and have to come and prove that you are innocent later.
Some of the ‘evidence’ that can be used against you includes ‘the recent acquisition of a firearm or ammunition.’
So merely buying a new firearm can be considered evidence against you in these secret hearings!
The worst part: these seizure orders would take place before the gun owner has been convicted in a court of law!
In fact, these seizure order can be issued before you’ve been arrested, indicted or charged of any crime at all!
With support for this bill growing by the day in the wake of the Parkland attack, gun owners looked to the NRA to stand tall and draw a line in the sand, as a warning to lawmakers.
Instead, in an unbelievable act of betrayal, Chris Cox released a video statement (in addition to the public statement signed by Chris Cox and Wayne Lapierre) calling on Congress to pass ‘Red Flag Gun Seizures’ at the federal level!
Sure, they wanted the ex-parte provision of the bill removed, but loudly backed the Pelosi/Bloomberg gun confiscation agenda that would have your guns seized without you ever being convicted of a crime!
Gun owners were stunned.
The moment the NRA released this statement, Republican lawmakers across the country began to advance ‘Red Flag Gun Seizures.’
Why wouldn’t they — with the NRA publicly supporting them?
In less than six months, eight states passed this legislation.
In Florida alone, 67 ‘A’ rated state lawmakers backed Florida’s ‘Red Flag Gun Seizure’ legislation in 2018, knowing that the NRA wouldn’t attack them for it!
Now, in early 2019, Republican lawmakers in over a dozen states are talking about passing this legislation.
William Barr, nominee for Attorney General, recently said in his Judiciary Committee hearing that passing a federal
‘Red Flag Gun Seizure’ law was the ‘most important thing’ lawmakers could do to stop gun violence.
In other words, once the NRA opened the door, gun-grabbers in both parties rushed through it and began to advance this bill.
If the NRA had stood tall and opposed the concept — and reminded lawmakers that they would be held accountable if they voted for ‘Red Flags’ –- we wouldn’t be in this position today.
But they didn’t stand up for us. They didn’t tell gun-grabbers to pound sand. They didn’t do what millions of gun owners pay them to do, which is to fight!
They gave in.
Worse than that, the NRA has had Senator Marco Rubio introduce this legislation in the Senate this year!
S.7 would bribe state legislatures into passing ‘Red Flag Gun Seizure’ legislation, by promising financial incentives based on how quickly they institute the seizure process.
Is this what you pay the NRA dues for?
Three major concessions in less than a year.
Absolutely no pro-gun legislation passed into law.
Republican lawmakers agreeing to the most aggressive gun control proposal that we’ve ever heard of, because the NRA is ok with it.
It’s becoming clear to more gun owners every single day that the NRA has become a D.C.-based group of insiders, content to ‘manage’ our gun rights instead of fighting for them.
With Wayne Lapierre getting paid $6,000,000 per year, it’s not hard to imagine why it’s so easy to ‘just get along.’
Gun owners deserve better.
Gun owners need leaders who will get down in the gutter and fight like dogs for their freedoms!
That’s what the American Firearms Association is all about.
We are sick and tired of the compromises, the deal-making, and the back-stabbing going on at the NRA headquarters.
Sure, we’re small, but our team has years of experience fighting for gun owners at the state level and we are going to leverage that experience to fight as hard as we can for gun owners across the country.
So if you’re tired of the betrayals, please stand with us!
If you’re tired of losing ground without a fight, please stand with us.
And if you know, deep down, that the appeasement philosophy of the NRA just isn’t going to stop today’s gun-grabbers who are more emboldened than ever, please stand with us!