NRA Chief LaPierre Says Obama Re-election Jeopardizes Gun Rights

If President Barack Obama gets a second term, the future of gun owners’ rights could be in jeopardy as he makes more nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court, the National Rifle Association’s leader said Tuesday.

“I believe that the Second Amendment hangs by one vote, and this 2012 election could break the back of it one way or the other,” said Wayne LaPierre, the association’s chief executive officer and executive vice president, the Arkansas News reported Wednesday.

LaPierre told a crowd at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service that he believes the two people who Obama has named to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, “will spend the next 30 years trying to gut the Second Amendment.”

In 2008 and last year, the high court ruled 5-4 on two cases that protects an individual’s right to own a firearm.

“Those cases, I believe that the court said what all Americans already knew, that it (the Second Amendment) was their individual right,” LaPierre said.

“That being said, the Supreme Court is not the final authority on anything, the people are in this country, and the people are determined to protect the Second Amendment.

"I believe the people will take advantage of whatever process is available to them to protect that freedom.”