Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com
Saturday, Feb. 2, 2002

To sustained applause, National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre brought his audience members to their feet when he vowed that if the anti-free-speech bill becomes law, he will "drop anchor offshore and broadcast the truth from our own TV tower."

"John McCain, we will not be silenced," he said in referring to the senior senator from Arizona, the chief sponsor of the bill. A discharge petition has gathered enough signatures to bring a version of the Senate-passed legislation to the House floor for a vote.

LaPierre, a longtime defender of the Second Amendment's guarantee of the right to bear arms, accused the backers of the measure of "embezzling the First Amendment," the right to free speech.

Power Grab by Pols and Big Media

The NRA activist told the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that supporters of the measure would shut up free speech. They would do this, he contended, by outlawing "pesky issue ads" by such groups as the NRA 30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election, "except for the politicians and giant media conglomerates."

"Where in the Constitution does it say they're freer than we are?" asked LaPierre, naming several media giants.

"They can spend billions and billions of dollars about their pet causes and their pet politicians, while they ignore or vilify you and me."

Currently, under the Constituion, he argued, if you fight for a cause, "the worst you can do is lose."

Under the McCain-Feingold bill and its House companion, he warned, "the worst that could happen is you can go to prison and spend five years in the penitentiary and a $25,000 fine.

"But the media and politicians won't talk about that part of the bill."

P.C. Airport 'Security'

Airport security since Sept. 11 has given Americans the worst of both worlds, LaPierre said: no security and invasive procedures against law-abiding Americans.

They can "take away nail clippers form Grandma and wand-rape somebody's daughter in public. But no profiling!"

Absurd, he said, that "we don't want to risk offending Islamic ex-cons with two aliases and no job."

If anyone is to suffer loss of liberties, he added, let it be the illegal aliens, not Americans who play by the rules. He said that as a people, many Americans have been too "numbed up and dumbed down" by the media establishment to fight back.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Guns/Gun Control

Homeland/Civil Defense

Immigration/Borders

Media Bias

Sen. John McCain

War on Terrorism

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