NRA, GOP fire barbs at Clinton

THEY CAME loaded not for bear, but for a certain Democrat.

National Rifle Association leaders and Republicans likely to run for President brandished their disdain for Hillary Clinton as the gun group met in Tennessee Friday.

With Clinton expected to finally launch her second bid for President Sunday, NRA boss Wayne LaPierre went squarely after her as an enemy of the Second Amendment — and far from the best choice to become American’s first female commander-inchief.

Rattling off Clinton family controversies past and present, he jeered, “Hillary Clinton has more ‘-Gates’ than a South Texas cattle ranch — and Americans know it.”

Some GOP hopefuls followed suit. Others kept their powder fairly dry when it came to Clinton, training their ire instead on President Obama — and some tried to bind them together as comrades in the fight against the right to bear arms.

“I understand Hillary’s about to announce her candidacy this weekend. I wonder what her slogan’s going to be. I suspect it won’t be, ‘Four more years,’” deadpanned Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, the first potential 2016 candidate to speak.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush took the podium to play up his gun-rights street cred, including having signed the nation’s first “stand your ground” law.

Bush assailed the “liberal, progressive worldview of Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, and Eric Holder, and all the other people who want to take the guns out of the hands of the good guys and the hands of the law-abiding citizens.”

The day’s final big speaker, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, took the stage with a grin — and a double-edged joke: “So now, is this the ‘Ready for Hillary’ gathering?”