of the reason we’re having this battle is because it’s a battle about culture and a battle about values and a battle about one’s view of what this country ought to be like, and that’s something that’s very diffi cult to get over.” The cultural chasm recalled
Obama’s April 2008 observation that small-town folks tended to “cling to their guns and religion.” In January, Obama gave an inter- view to The New Republic where he appeared to reprise his attempt to empathize with the plight of the woebegone gun-clingers. Noting many of them grow up
shooting guns with family mem- bers, Obama said: “You can see why you’d be pretty protective of that.” Channeling his inner mod- erate for the liberal publication, he added: “So it’s trying to bridge those gaps that I think is going to be part of the biggest task over the next several months. And that
means that advocates of gun con- trol have to do a little more listen- ing than they do sometimes.” But remarks by Feinstein in her Face the Nation appearance that same week revealed the schism’s breadth. Feinstein recoiled at a New York Times report on the NRA-sponsored clinics that teach youngsters how to safely handle fi re- arms. “As a matter of
fact,” a mortifi ed Feinstein told CBS host Bob Schieff er, “I saw a very young youngster with an AR-15 in the newspaper this morn- ing. That’s the same type weap- on that was used at Sandy Hook school. I know what happened to the bodies at Sandy Hook school. And to have these weapons just fl oating around our society and particularly with youngsters, who
“What is going on here is the fi rst assault on private gun ownership.”
— Charlie Daniels country-music legend
are by nature unpredictable, is a bit frightening.” Feinstein was apparently referring to an image that accompanied the story on the NRA’s youth training programs. The picture showed a junior marks- man in a prone fi ring position on a gun range Fort Benning, Ga. The teenage shooter was wear- ing safety goggles and ear plugs, peer- ing into the scope of a semi-automatic rifl e, as an Army marksmanship in- structor leaned in to provide hands- on instruction.
What Feinstein found “a bit frightening” was in fact a youth- training clinic provided to enhance gun safety and marksmanship. That culture clash aside, noth-
ing ruffl es the hackles of Second Amendment defenders quite like the left’s protestations that no one
NRA President: ‘We Are Going to Prevail’ N
RA President David Keene has been a stalwart voice for conservative causes in the nation’s capital for over 40
years. He sat down with Newsmax to off er his take of the NRA’s strategy for defending the Second Amendment.
KEENE ON GUNS David Keene staunchly defends the Second Amendment.
Newsmax: To what extent will President Obama be able to restrict guns by executive fiat? NRA President David Keene: There are obviously some things he can’t do, and there are some things he shouldn’t be doing. But in order to implement these various changes . . . he’s going to have to go to Congress to get the money to fund it. So there are going to be votes on these things, there is going to be a debate in Congress. And our members and other gun owners — believers in the Second Amendment — are going to have the right to be heard.
The president seems more interested in blaming “the gun lobby” than making schools safer . . . The NRA is viewed by the president and others as the roadblock standing in the way of his violating the Constitution. They
54 NEWSMAX | MARCH 2013
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