The official position of the NRA and most Republicans is that everyone should have access to guns, even former felons.
Given their well established position on this issue, what Wayne LaPierre said at the NRA's convention over the weekend may be a little confusing.
LAPIERRE: "There’s no limit as to how far the elites will go to put Hillary into the White House. They’re even allowing convicted felons the right to vote, including violent rapists and murderers. Sounds outrageous but it’s true.
Ya don't say?
"The Democratic-led Maryland General Assembly did it for 44,000 ex-cons. In Virginia, Democratic Governor Terry McAullife, Hillary’s longtime bag man, did it for 206,000 convicted felons. Tentacles of the Clinton machine are out registering those felons right now. They’re releasing them and then they’re registering them. Heck, when they sign their release papers, they might as well, at the prison door, be standing there giving them a Hillary Clinton bumper sticker. It’s unbelievable."
They're releasing them and allowing them to carry guns. They might as well, at the prison, be standing there giving them a gun. Sounds outrageous but it’s true. It's unbelievable.
What is more dangerous: restoring the constitutional right to vote for former felons, or letting them carry guns?
In Wayne LaPierre's mind and the mind of most Republicans, there is no debate. They view voting and the Democratic process in general as an existential threat, not gun violence. This is why Republicans in Virginia filed a lawsuit today to block Governor McAuliffe's executive order to restore voting rights for ex-felons.
The NRA reelected Ted Nugent to their board of directors at their convention, by the way. Nugent, as Media Matters reminds us, is an anti-Semitic, racist troll who regularly calls for people to be killed.
The official position of the NRA is that voting rights for former felons is a bigger threat to America than armed lunatics like Nugent.