That was the message delivered to a standing-room-only audience during the 24th annual Gun Rights Policy Conference (GRPC), held at the Renaissance Hotel in St. Louis, MO, by Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) President Joseph Tartaro. It was repeated in one form or another by several others during the weekend event, which saw Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), deliver a no-holds-barred special address that ripped the assertion of the Obama Administration and may in Congress that the majority of guns being used in the Mexican drug war come from the United States.

LaPierre’s speech was illustrated by a news report from NRA News’ Ginny Simone, who took a camera crew to the American Southwest for a revealing investigative report on gun trafficking. LaPierre’s remarks drew a standing ovation from the energized crowd.

The event was attended by more than 700 gun rights activists from all over the map, and covered by CNN, a local FOX affiliate and other media.

SAF founder Alan Gottlieb noted that the agenda was a “map for the road ahead.” He said the 2010 elections will be critical to the future of gun rights. He predicted that gains by anti-gunners next year in Congress could remove any barriers for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who would revive the Clinton-era ban on semi-automatic firearms, and push legislation that could “ban gun shows from coast to coast.”

He also suggested that if gun control proponents are stopped at the national level, their focus will become state and local politics.

“We can expect a push to expand the number of states that ban so-called assault weapons,” he stated.

Conversely, Gottlieb said there will be efforts to push for national concealed carry legislation and get state concealed carry laws adopted in Wisconsin and Illinois.

Not surprisingly, many of the panels that followed during the event expanded on the themes Gottlieb outlined. It began with the annual federal affairs briefing, featuring specialists from various groups that are currently battling to keep Congressional gun control advocates in check.

But a pivotal moment during the conference was LaPierre’s rousing address, which was intermixed with video footage regarding the Mexican drug wars and sound bites from anti-gun politicians.

Tartaro introduced LaPierre, recalling that the two met years ago when LaPierre first joined the NRA staff. Now, LaPierre has served as executive vice president longer than anyone else who has served in that office.
Dangers to gun rights

LaPierre’s 25-minute address warned of impending threats including a push to renew the ban on so-called assault weapons by using the Mexican drug wars as a launch pad. He blasted the mainstream press for falsely reporting that 90% of the guns used by Mexican drug gangs come from the US, when in actuality, that figure relates only to the small number of firearms for which the Mexican government has requested traces.

The majority of the illegal guns, he said, come from other sources, including deserters from the Mexican military, from Russia, China and Central America.

“The media is not going to tell that story,” he said.

LaPierre got a laugh from the audience when he observed, “How may times did you hear that phony sound bite about 90% of the guns in Mexico coming from the United States? The minute they said that, my B.S. detector hit the wall.”

He took a few moments to discuss freshman Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, noting that the media also has been less than candid about her anti-gun background, but then got right back on message about the origin of guns used in the Mexican drug war.

“That 90% figure is about 100% hot air,” he asserted.

LaPierre then turned his attention toward the United Nations, where NRA and other organizations, including the Second Amendment Foundation, have been actively monitoring attempts to pass international gun control treaties that could be detrimental to the US Constitution.

“Our freedoms don’t cause crime,” he said. “Failure to put the bad guys in jail and prosecute them is what causes crime. Stiff sentencing is what we need. Politicians; too many of them don’t want solutions, they want sound bites.

“The most fundamental freedoms on which this country was built,” LaPierre cautioned, “are being questioned. They want to take the United States and somehow have it conform to some worldwide standard. When we start going down that path in this country, that’s the first critical step to destroying the American way of life.

“We cannot and will not allow American freedoms to bend to the will of the world that wants a lesser standard of freedom that we have in the United States of America,” he said.

LaPierre closed with an appeal to everyone in the audience to become a gun rights freedom activist. He encouraged them to take what they learned at the conference back home, to energize their hunting and shooting buddies, and turn them into gun rights activists as well.

“We need to get active every day and fight back with every ounce of energy we have,” he concluded.