Standing guard
By Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President

The Company He Keeps

   What do a radical South Side Chicago priest who has demanded that law-abiding firearm dealers and state legislators be “snuffed out” and Chicago’s political boss, who is “livid” and “outraged” over the Supreme Court’s recognition of the Second Amendment have in common?
   Influence over Barack Obama.
   In the case of Mayor Richard S. Daley—who heads the toughest, most powerful urban political machine in the nation—his early primary endorsement of freshman U.S. Senator Obama’s bid for the Democratic nomination for the presidency requires a big political payback. And I suspect that payback will involve our gun rights if Obama takes the White House in November.
   When the Supreme Court issued its historic landmark decision in June striking down the District of Columbia gun ban as violating the individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Mayor Daley issued a five-minute diatribe.
   As the Chicago Tribune, which immediately demanded the repeal of the Second Amendment, put it:
   “In railing against the Supreme Court ruling, Daley stressed the danger of private gun ownership ... .”
   Alluding to the urban gun-ban cabal headed by his New York colleague Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Daley sputtered, “Every mayor will be outraged over this. Why should we allow more and more guns in our homes? Could you see everyone having guns in their home?”
   With the extraordinary victory for the nation’s gun owners, the Supreme Court recognized that all peaceable law-abiding Americans should indeed have that choice.
   If Daley had his way, he wouldn’t “allow” a single gun in any home. Recently, in Los Angeles, he said, “It is about time that America wakes up and says ... we can outlaw smoking in a bar so quickly, yet you cannot outlaw guns in America.” And at another rally he screamed:
   “NO GUNS IN THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA!”
   Daley is a defendant in NRA’s lawsuit to throw out the Chicago gun ban, which is virtually identical to the unconstitutional D.C. ban.
   Time and time again, Obama has said the Chicago ban is in line with his vision of the Second Amendment.
   No matter how much Obama wraps himself in empty words about the Second Amendment, know him by the friends he keeps—like Dick Daley.
   And that brings me to the radical priest, Michael Pfleger.
   On May 27, 2007, with a mob of 1,000 gun-ban radicals cheering him on—blocking the entrance to Chuck’s Gun Shop and Range in Riverdale, Ill., a suburb of Chicago—Pfleger screamed a clear death threat against the owner.
   “John Riggio. R-I-G-G-I-O. We’re going to find you and snuff you out ... like a rat—we’re going to catch you and pull you out ... whatever it takes to shut this gun store down ... We’re gonna snuff out John Riggio . . .
“We’re gonna snuff out legislators who are against our gun laws.”
   I have never encountered such hatred. Pfleger’s words were recognized as death threats by Chicago’s Cardinal George who issued a rebuke—saying, “publicly delivering a threat against anyone’s life betrays the civil order and is morally outrageous, especially if this threat came from a priest.”
   Why is this radical priest so important with the coming election? Because Fr. Pfleger is a key long-time advisor to Sen. Obama, who in turn procured for Pfleger a $225,000 grant from the state and a $100,000 earmark from the federal government. Pfleger is a financial contributor to Obama’s campaigns.
   In a Chicago Sun-Times article touting Obama’s faith—in which he stressed the importance of close advisors in “maintaining your moral compass”—the newspaper declared:
   “Friends and advisors such as the Rev. Michael Pfleger ... who has known Obama for the better part of 20 years, help him keep that moral compass set, he [Obama] says.”
   Most Americans never heard of Michael Pfleger until videotapes surfaced of a racist rant on Obama’s behalf mocking Hillary Clinton. The performance by Fr. Pfleger was at the invitation of Obama’s Trinity United Church of Christ, made infamous by its America-hating pastor Jeremiah Wright, with his diatribes declaring, “God Bless America? No! No! No! God D--- America.”
   After weeks of dithering as to whether to leave Wright’s Trinity, it was only Fr. Pfleger’s Hillary-smearing rant that ultimately caused Obama to quit.
   Yet Obama was silent on Pfleger’s “snuff” threats.
   But then closing down law-abiding gun stores is part of Obama’s real Second Amendment vision. He has proposed a law banning federally licensed firearm dealers from operating within five miles of a school or park. Think about almost any community in America and what that would mean.
   There are those who say guilt by association is unfair. To them I would say, 20 years with these men as Obama’s closest confidants and spiritual advisors cannot be discounted.
   When it comes to the Second Amendment, the company Obama keeps speaks more than his own words. They would destroy the Second Amendment and so would Obama, the candidate.