Friday, May
21, 2004--Although the National Rifle Association has not yet
formally endorsed President George Bush in the election, the NRA
has begun to go after Democrat presumptive nominee John Kerry.
With roughly 25% of NRA members living
in battleground states such as West Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Michigan,
Missouri and Pennsylvania, Senator Kerry may find the organization's
opposition costly.
Citing John Kerry's votes for gun control
over the last couple of decades, the NRA says that Kerry's ownership
of a shotgun and a rifle, or the fact that he occassionally hunts,
will not help him.
"His anti-firearms record is among
the very worst in American politics," NRA executive vice
president Wayne LaPierre told the Associated Press. "It's
not a stretch to say that the worst thing that could happen to
the Second Amendment is for John Kerry to be elected president."
The Kerry campaign was quick to fire back,
with the senator calling LaPierre's statement "the phoniest
argument I've ever heard in my life." Senator Kerry reiterated
that he has been hunting since he was twelve years old.
"If he wants to come hunting with
me one day, as long as he agreed not to turn the gun on me, I'd
be happy to," Kerry said in an interview this week with reporters
and editors from The Associated Press.
LaPierre did not comment on the "as
long as he agreed not to turn the gun on me" remark.
Cognizant of the fact that Al Gore's support
for gun control cost him the election in 2000, the Kerry campaign
is trying hard to portray him as a friend of gun owners.
Kerry campaign adviser Tad Devine remarked
to the AP, "We're confident that John Kerry is a lifelong
hunter, gun owner. It's going to be very difficult to paint him
in the same kind of corner into which Al Gore was painted by the
NRA."
The NRA has repeatedly pointed to Senator
Kerry's March vote for the Feinstein Assault Weapon ban, as well
as his vote the same day for Senator Ted Kennedy's bill which
would have banned many common hunting calibers, specifically including
.223, .308 and .30-30.
The question come November will be whether
voting gun owners will view John Kerry's hunting activities as
proof of his support for gun rights, or whether they will hold
against him his voting record on guns over the past two decades.
Either way, a reconciliation with the
NRA would seem to be out of the question.
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