Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action (the political and lobbying arm of the organization), kicked off the organization’s annual meeting by declaring that the efforts to push gun control laws at the national and state levels last year constituted “the biggest attack on freedom in 200 years.”
He also called attention to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has pledged to spend $50 million to promote gun control this cycle.
“$50 million is a little start-up capital to try to take this freedom away,” Cox said. “What Michael Bloomberg doesn’t understand is that this freedom isn’t for sale. You can’t buy the hearts and minds with a lot of advertising and press statements and egomaniacal statements like, ‘if there’s a God, I’m going straight into heaven.’”
He added, “The goal shouldn’t be to hand our firearms down to our children. The goal should be to hand this freedom down so that they will have the freedom to purchase whatever they want to purchase.”