National Harbor, MD - “We will lose our Second Amendment freedoms” if Hillary Clinton becomes president and nominates a liberal justice, moderator Mercedes Schlapp warned at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday. That’s why she and other gun rights activists joined the “Thank Goodness for Guns in America” panel to defend Americans’ right to bear arms.
The CNN town hall on gun violence with President Obama held a couple weeks ago at George Mason University was a constant target of the CPAC panel. They called it nothing more than a “gun control infomercial.” While CNN insisted they invited the NRA to partake in the discussion, the network only offered the organization one pre-screened question. So, they declined.
During the biased CNN town hall, one participant named Kimberly Corban, a rape survivor, confronted the president about why he is so intent on scaling back the rights that could help protect her and her family. At today’s CPAC discussion, Corban said Obama did not answer her but instead engaged in a “political pivot.”
Another panelist, Sheriff David Clarke, a well-known gun rights activist, began his remarks by holding up the Constitution. This document, he said, “means everything to me and it should mean everything to you.”
“These are your rights,” he continued. “I am a defender of your rights.”
The Second Amendment, he said, has special meaning for him.
“This Constitution allowed for us to eventually get it right,” he explained.
“My ancestors fought as well as the Founding Fathers for this document to apply to us,” he said.
“Slaves plus guns equaled freedom.”
He won’t cede those rights back to the federal government.
Later, when the panel fielded questions from the audience about how to fight back against gun control, Clarke insisted he will fight against regulations like expanded background checks.
“No, no, no,” he said. “What part of 'no' do they not understand?”
Another specific issue that came up during Saturday’s discussion was the need to encourage our police officers. Chris Cox, the director of the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action, was disgusted that Obama is the only president in history that has “turned his back on law enforcement.”
Kudos to CPAC for having an honest discussion about guns that CNN did not.
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