Miniter: 'Why are we the enemy?'

The author of “Saving the Bill of Rights” told Human Events, while at the 2013 SHOT Show, he was not surprised by President Barack Obama’s 23 policy memoranda announced Jan. 16 that are the centerpiece of his program to restrict gun rights.

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“Well, it’s what we expected,” said Frank Miniter, the former senior editor of Outdoor Life magazine and the author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Hunting” and “The Ultimate Man’s Survival Guide.”

Miniter said, “I wasn’t shocked or surprised, but what I want to know is: ‘Why are we the enemy?'”

The gun owners and gun rights community are all about personal and community safety, he said.

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At the same time as the president was attacking gun owners, he could have reached out to the people as the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoors Trade Show, sponsored by the Newtown, Conn.-based National Shooting Sports Foundation, he said.

“What really gets me is why wouldn’t he work with the people here?” he asked.

“Here we have 60,000 people all gathered together,” he said. “They’re all good people, they’re not bad people—they’re the good guys with the guns—why won’t he work with them? They will step up.”

For all of the work the president put into his own proposals, the NRA and NSSF could have provided expertise and off-the-shelf programs that would pass Congress immediately, he said.

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Frank Miniter

“You have all these things that they do—why isn’t he working with them and their ideas, proposals and so on?”

“We all want a better, safer country.”

Obama will have trouble succeeding in Congress because of the political will to protect gun rights, he said “Right now, there is a slim chance, I have talked to the NRA leadership and other people to see where they were–if something else horrible were to happen, it could overcome that.”

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The Miniter said he would wait before weighing in on the president’s legal standing, until he had a chance to look into them more deeply. “They have had gun control before, such as the ‘assault weapons’ ban.”

But, he said he is not relying on the Republican Party to protect gun owners. “Look at what happened to me? I am a New Yorker.”

In a late night session of the New York State legislature, Republican leaders joined with Democrats to support Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s New York Safe Act, a sweeping restriction of gun rights.

“Cuomo just rammed that through, literally as Cuomo said–they had seconds to look at the legislation before they signed off on it,” he said.

“Republicans ran across the aisle and did that to us, too,” he said.

“So, it is possible.”

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