Presidential Gun Record Guide

With "Super Tuesday" voting just hours away, I want to make sure you are fully aware of the gun rights records of each Republican candidate for President.

As you know, NAGR has mailed every candidate for President an official NAGR Gun Rights Survey.

Ron Paul is the only remaining Republican candidate who has returned his survey 100% in favor of gun rights.

Over the last few weeks and months, I've asked you to call the campaigns of Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich to demand that each candidate return their gun rights survey 100% in favor of the Second Amendment.

Believe me, your calls worked.

Repesentatives from each of those campaigns called NAGR offices demanding we instruct our members and supporters to stop calling and to send them another copy of the survey.

Each candidate has the NAGR Presidential Survey in hand -- but Romney, Santorum and Gingrich are still stonewalling gun owners by refusing to respond.

Each of the remaining candidates needs to know that gun owners have a powerful voice and we assume that silence is a sign they are hiding an anti-gun position.

I have serious concerns about Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich.

It's their long anti-gun records that worry me.

Let me take a minute or two right now to remind you of the anti-gun positions of the three Presidential candidates who have so far refused to return their National Association for Gun Rights Presidential Survey.

Mitt Romney:

So far, Mitt Romney has refused to respond to his NAGR Gun Rights Survey, perhaps because when Romney was Governor of ultra-liberal Massachusetts he signed a bill to ban an entire class of firearms.

Would he do the same thing -- or even worse -- as President of the United States? His record indicates that he would.

Mitt Romney supports the Brady Registration Act, mandatory 5-day waiting periods, mandatory firearms ID cards, the Federal Feinstein Gun Ban (so-called "assault weapons ban") and he signed the Massachusetts Semi-Auto Ban in 2004.

He even went as far as to say that he supported Massachusetts' tough anti-gun laws: "We do have tough gun laws in Massachusetts; I support them... I won't chip away at them; I believe they protect us and provide for our safety."

And to throw fuel on top of Mitt Romney's anti-gun fire, he received the endorsement of John McCain recently, who himself has recorded promotional commercials for anti-gun groups hell-bent on restricting our Second Amendment rights.

Rick Santorum:

If you’ve watched any of the Presidential debates, you’ve noticed that Rick Santorum claims time and again to be a “fighter” who has “led on conservative issues.”

Rick Santorum’s record on the Second Amendment, however, tells a different story.

In the 90s, he voted to support the Lautenberg Gun Ban, which stripped law-abiding gun owners of their Second Amendment rights for life, simply because they spanked their children or did nothing more than grab a spouses wrist.

He voted for a bill in 1999 disguised as an attempt to increase penalties on drug traffickers with guns... but it also included a provision to require federal background checks at gun shows.

In 2000, Santorum voted to force pawn shops to require a background check on anyone coming into the store to sell a firearm.

And then he voted with gun-controlling Democrats Dianne Fienstein and Frank Lautenberg to mandate locks on handguns in 2005.

But worst of all, Rick Santorum has a storied history of bailing out anti-gun Republicans facing reelection.

Rick Santorum came to anti-gun Arlen Specter’s defense in 2004 when he was down in the polls against pro-gun Republican Pat Toomey. Specter won and continued to push for gun control during his years in the Senate.

He also supported and openly campaigned for anti-gun New Jersey governor, Christine Todd Whitman.

It certainly appears that Rick Santorum has no regrets about his past anti-gun record. Worse, it appears he’d be happy to continue along this path as President.

Newt Gingrich:

For those who have followed Newt Gingrich’s career, the revelation that he talks out of both sides of his mouth won’t be a surprise.

Despite claiming to be pro-gun, Newt Gingrich’s reign as Speaker was downright hostile to our Second Amendment rights.

Newt supports the Brady National Gun Registry, a national biometric thumbprint database for gun purchasers, the Lautenberg Gun Ban and the “Criminal Safezones Act."

Newt doesn't think the Brady Instant Gun Registry goes far enough -- he wants thumbprints:

"I think we prefer to go to instant check on an immediate basis and try to accelerate implementing instant checks so that you could literally check by thumbprint... Instant check is a much better system than the Brady process." -- June 27, 1997

Gingrich may claim to be pro-gun . . .

But his record indicates otherwise, and his refusal to answer his NAGR Gun Rights Survey should give any Second Amendment supporter cause for concern.

You and I know we have the most anti-gun President in the history of our country right now in the Oval Office . . .

. . . but perhaps even more dangerous would be a Republican in the Oval Office with a proven anti-gun history of cutting backroom, anti-gun deals.

For Freedom,

Dudley Brown
Executive Director