The NRA is going on the attack, preempting President Obama's planned gun control roll out by releasing an ad that calls him an "elitist hypocrite" for using armed Secret Service agents to protect his daughters.
"Are the President's kids more important than yours?" The ad asks. "Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their schools?"
"He's just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security," it says.
Watch:
The ad is part of the NRA's renewed push to prevent Congress from passing gun control. The group has also rereleased its army of lobbyists. Politico reports:
The NRA kept its dozen in-house lobbyists on lockdown in the first month after the Newtown massacre, but no more. The group is moving back onto Capitol Hill in force, not shying away from its take-no-prisoners message: no new gun laws.
But as President Barack Obama prepares to release his gun-control proposals Wednesday, lawmakers can expect to hear a new argument alongside the NRA’s longtime case — about the right to bear arms and the sanctity of the Second Amendment.
Its friends in the gun manufacturing lobby are relying on union workers to make a more practical argument — that guns are about jobs.
The President, who will speak around noon on Wednesday, is expected to propose an assault weapons ban, among other things. From the New York Times:
[S]ome of the proposals that Mr. Obama is expected to make at the White House on Wednesday, which are likely to include a call for expanded background checks, a ban on assault weapons and limits on high-capacity clips, will be intended not only to prevent high-profile mass shootings, but also to curb the more commonplace gun violence that claims many thousands more lives every year.
“The president has made clear that he intends to take a comprehensive approach,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday. Mr. Carney said the proposals were aimed, broadly, at what he called “the scourge of gun violence in this country.”
Meanwhile, as the President continues to talk of potentially using executive action to implement gun control measures, conservatives are suggesting that he could be impeached for his trouble. Republican Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas threatened to file articles of impeachment earlier this week. And on Tuesday, former Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese told Newsmax that it is a risk. “It would be up to the Congress to take action, such as looking in to it to see if, in fact, he has really tried to override the Constitution itself,” he said. “In which case, it would be up to them to determine what action they should take — and perhaps even to the point of impeachment.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., had his own reasons for opposing executive action. "I'm against having a king," Paul told the Christian Broadcasting Network. "I think having a monarch is what we fought the American Revolution over and someone who wants to bypass the Constitution, bypass Congress -- that's someone who wants to act like a king or a monarch."
He added: "And I promise you, there'll be no rock left unturned as far as trying to stop him from usurping the Constitution, running roughshod over Congress."
At the state level, gun control opponents are taking their own (constitutionally questionable) action. In Texas, lawmakers are considering a law that would make it a felony to enforce any federal gun laws. A Wyoming Republican made a similar proposal earlier in January.
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