BATTLE-CALL FOR COMMON-SENSE CONSERVATIVES
Today we must begin with a rather unusual request: Will all law-and-order liberals kindly butt out, just this once? We don’t need your help on this one.
We are talking today only to the millions of Americans who strongly support conservative principles, cherish the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment and admire the iconic leadership of Ronald Reagan and Sen. Barry Goldwater.
We are talking today to the millions of conservative Americans who pay dues to the National Rifle Association but also are sickened by the horrific mass shootings of innocent adults and children who could have been their own loved ones. Also, we are talking to all who are fed-up with Washington’s NRA-compliant do-nothings who failed to act in this year when America has already had 38 mass shooting incidents — with 53 people murdered by mass shooters in August alone in Middle America.
Most won’t remember the shock we felt 30 years ago, on Jan. 17, 1989, when a man with an AK-47 assault rifle took just three minutes to spray 106 rounds of ammunition into a Stockton, Calif., elementary school playground (five children killed, 30 wounded). Nor will most readers remember the empowering gratitude we felt just a week later, when our most famous conservative, Reagan, a lifelong champion of Second Amendment gun rights, led America yet again in his brand-new role as an ex-president. Asked a question about over-the-counter sales of military-styled weapons such as the AK-47 assault rifle, Reagan told his University of Southern California audience:
“I do not believe in taking away the right of the citizen for sporting, for hunting and so forth, or for home defense. But I do believe that an AK-47 … is not a sporting weapon or needed for defense of a home.” The Associated Press reported that “Reagan received extended applause.”
It must be hard for today’s principled and patriotic conservatives to grasp what it is like to have courageous conservative leaders willing to challenge the dictates of the NRA’s big-money gun lobbyists — by publicly speaking views that are privately held by many of the NRA’s dues-paying gun owners.
In 1994, former presidents Reagan, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter helped enact a new law banning domestic manufacture of assault weapons. But by 2004, a brand of weaker-kneed Republicans meekly allowed the ban to expire, putting their electoral safety ahead of your family’s safety, while giving NRA lobbyists what they were paying for.
Today, maybe more than ever, America needs those of you who are our new generation of patriotic conservatives to have the courage of your common-sense convictions and the guts to defend your fellow Americans by using your most powerful weapon: your vote.
Vote for candidates who will preserve your Second Amendment rights to own guns for hunting, sporting and self-protection — yet who also share your determination to get combat weapons off our streets, away from our schools and out of the hands of warped terrorists bent on mass slaughter.
Vote to rid our government of those puppet pols who endangered us by failing to act. Replace them with patriotic conservatives who share your values — and have the courage to do what we all know must be done to keep our families safe:
Close the background-check loopholes. Ban bump-stock modifications and huge capacity magazines that transform civilian guns into battlefield-ready weapons. Ban the manufacture, sale and civilian ownership of military-style assault weapons (and yes, let’s buy back assault weapons to keep us safe).
Finally, when gun lobbyists and their puppets push you to settle for only fixing background checks and nothing more, tell them this test about saving our family’s lives has only one correct answer: All of the above.