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NRA Members Echo Fiery Right-Wing Anti-Obama Rhetoric: ‘He Hates The Second Amendment’

ThinkProgress reported from the NRA Convention this past weekend. This is our sixth dispatch. See our previous posts here, here, here, here, and here.

Last weekend, ThinkProgress interviewed dozens of NRA members at the NRA’s annual conference in Charlotte, NC. While many offered reasonable positions on issues that haven’t been widely publicized — such as closing the “terror gap” gun loophole and whether gun owners should be to allowed bring weapons into bars and consume alcohol — the vast majority of NRA members ThinkProgress spoke with echoed the misinformed and extreme anti-Obama rhetoric espoused by right-wing heroes such as Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and other Fox News hosts.

Indeed, right-wing leaders brought their inflammatory rhetoric to this year’s conference. NRA favorite Ted Nugent repeatedly claimed that “there’s a Marxist in the White House,” while Palin and Beck entertained thousands of NRA members with classic anti-Obama one-liners.

PALIN: Don’t doubt for a minute that, if they thought they could get away with it, they would ban guns and ban ammunition and gut the Second Amendment.

BECK: The people that we have running the country, these are not Democrats. These are revolutionaries! They are Marxist revolutionaries!

Not surprisingly, many of the NRA’s members repeat this right-wing noise. ThinkProgress has compiled a video of some of the more egregious examples of anti-Obama rhetoric taken from interviews at the conference:

NRA MEMBER 1: He’d just as soon get rid of all the guns in the country I’m sure.

NRA MEMBER 2: I think he would try to eliminate the Second Amendment if he could.

NRA MEMBER 3: I think we’re headed toward socialism. And I think if that happens we’ll be not long after that we’ll be headed toward communism.

NRA MEMBER 4: He has no respect for the country, no respect for the Constitution. … I believe he hates the Second Amendment.

NRA MEMBER 5: He’s an idiot. … I think that he’s anti-American. I think he’s trying to destroy our country and turn it into a socialist country.

Watch the video compilation:

The fear campaign has paid off for the gun industry. Since Obama took office, gun and ammunition sales have skyrocketed.

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And while Attorney General Eric Holder has said he would seek to reinstate the assault weapons ban — a move that Americans overwhelmingly support — the White House has said it’s not looking to push the issue. Obama has said repeatedly that he believes in the Second Amendment, and has no intention of taking away anyone’s guns. “I continue to believe that we can respect and honor the Second Amendment rights in our Constitution,” he said last year, “the rights of sportsmen and hunters and homeowners who want to keep their families safe to lawfully bear arms, while dealing with assault weapons that…are helping to fuel extraordinary violence.”