NRA Leader: Gun Owners have 'Good Deal to Fear'

The president of the National Rifle Association warned gun owners that they have a “good deal to fear” from President Obama’s gun-control proposals.

“They have to fear the establishment of the national registry,” NRA President David Keene said on MSNBC this morning. “You know, in the last few days, a senator from California and a governor of New York have suggested that one of their goals is what they call a ‘forced buy back.’ If you can get a record of who owns firearms, then the government could force them to sell those guns back to the government.”

Within the current package put forth, though, Keene noted that the government wouldn’t go for their solution to the “gun-show loophole” on background checks.

“We suggested that the government, if they wanted to, could have a booth at a gun show, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and require anybody that made sales on the premises have the — have that — those sales and those buyers checked. And the government said, ‘Well, we’re not interested in doing that,'” Keene said. “It becomes more problematic when you talk about the farmer who buys a new shotgun and sells his old one to his neighbor over the fence or the father who sells to the son or all of those kinds of things.”

When asked what the “rationale” is for civilians having high-capacity magazines, the NRA leader said it was tried and tested during the assault weapons ban and turned out to be a law that “makes you feel good but, in fact, it doesn’t do much.”

“If you are out there, and if you’re crazy and if you’ve got a gun like this and if you’re gonna shoot people with it, it takes a second or so to change the magazines,” Keene said.

He defended the NRA ad that highlights how Obama sends his own daughters to a school with armed protection.

“Our point was that the — not just the president, but David Gregory and others who are pictured in the ad, are people who have not just been skeptical, but have attacked the NRA and the very idea of school security while sending their own children to secure schools,” Keene said. “We believe that every parent ought to be able to be comfortable knowing that their children are safe, and if that requires armed security, it’s as good for the working man as it is for the president.”