June 2000

A war for freedom is headed our way, and it's going to take every single one of us to win it. As you know, late last March, President Clinton and Vice President Gore escalated their war of words on gun owners and the Second Amendment, demanding many new anti-gun laws be imposed on you. And as you know, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and I publicly confronted the Clinton-Gore Administration for pushing more pointless anti-gun laws when it so stubbornly refuses to enforce existing laws against the criminal misuse of firearms.

If enforced, those laws would have put thousands of felons behind bars and saved countless innocents lives--like Richard Kinchen, a deputy sheriff allegedly murdered by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, a convicted felon and former militant radical known as H. Rap Brown. If federal officials had just enforced existing law in 1995, when Al-Amin was charged with illegally possessing a firearm, Amin still would have been in prison--instead of allegedly gunning down two sheriff's deputies.

But Clinton and Gore can't be bothered to enforce the law. Instead, they cynically push more anti-gun laws that affect only law-abiding, honest gun owners--and proclaim their commitment to fighting violent crime--all while refusing to do anything to stop it.

Why? Could it be that by enforcing the law, and reducing violent crime, Clinton and Gore would undermine public support for their anti-gun schemes and thwart their plan to "build a legacy" by dismantling the Second Amendment? Whatever their motives, the price we must pay is the same.

While Clinton-Gore prosecutors wave away armed felons, and look for ways to litigate the gun industry out of business, those violent felons murder innocent Americans--and all of us are robbed of our freedoms and safety as a result.

That's why Wayne and I played hardball with the Administration and were so viciously attacked by Clinton, Gore, other anti-gun politicians and the national media for weeks afterwards. And it's why, right now, unless every gun owner, every hunter and everyone who cares about their freedom join this fight immediately, our Second Amendment rights could be wiped away by Election Day, 2000. We simply can't do it alone.

To get that urgent message out to gun owners, an all-new NRA publication--entitled America's First Freedom--will bring gun owners hard-edged news from the front lines of this fight, news unavailable from the anti-gun networks and newspapers.

Beginning with the first issue, America's First Freedom alerts journalists to some of the most outrageous but least reported stories of our time. It delivers news, opinion, in-depth analysis and undiluted, unflinching, unapologetic defense of the one right that safeguards all our freedoms as Americans: The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

America's First Freedom will deliver a journalistic first: News coverage of the political, legislative and cultural conflicts surrounding the Second Amendment told from the point of view of the everyday, mainstream, honest American gun owner. In other words, from your point of view.

I said a war is headed our way, and it is. All 435 seats of the U.S. House of Representatives are up for grabs, along with 33 U.S. Senators, 11 governors and countless state legislators. Anti-gun candidates at every level are investing their entire political careers on denying you your rights, and they're putting everything on the line to win.

So, too, must we.

With the communications conglomerates monopolizing national debate, the job won't be easy. But through America's First Freedom we'll have a voice and a vehicle to reach Americans with the truth about your rights. If they don't get it from us, they won't get it anywhere else.

But if, like Paul Revere, we get the word out and arm Americans with advance intelligence on the actions and strategy of our foes, by God, we can defend our precious rights.

They've thrown the gauntlet at our feet. For our children's freedoms and for our own safety, every one of us must pick up that gauntlet, and make the elections on November 7th our proudest triumph yet.