New President Elected at Annual NRA Convention
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NRANews/YouTube(HOUSTON) — The NRA has a new president, Birmingham, Ala., attorney Jim Porter, and if his old stump speeches are any indication, he has a knack for firing up a crowd.
Porter, who until this week was first vice president at the NRA and chairman of the group’s Legal Affairs Committee, will officially take over for David Keene at the group’s annual convention this weekend in Houston. The NRA’s executive vice president and CEO, Wayne LaPierre, has headed the organization since 1991 and has become a somewhat controversial but public face of the organization in recent months.
It’s no surprise that Porter, whose father was an NRA president in the late 1950s, is well-versed in NRA doctrine, namely protecting 2nd Amendment rights at all costs.
Anyone expecting the NRA to soften on assault weapons would be deeply disappointed.
Indeed, Porter, 64, has put it in crystal-clear terms: He believes the NRA was founded to teach civilians how to use military-style weapons in the Civil War era.
“That was the very reason they started the National Rifle Association, was to teach and train the civilian in the use of the standard military firearm,” Porter said at the New York Rifle & Pistol Association’s Annual Meeting in 2012. “And I am one who still feels very strongly that that is our greatest charges that we could have today is to train the civilian in the use of the standard military firearm, so when they have to fight for their country, they’re ready to do it.
“Also when they’re ready to fight tyranny, they’re ready to do it. Also when they’re ready to fight tyranny, they have the wherewithal and the weapons to do it,” Porter added.
The video of the meeting was first unearthed by the Education Fund to Stop Gun Violence.
Speaking of a fight, Porter also noted that the Civil War is commonly mislabeled in the North.
“Y’all might call it the Civil War, but we call it ‘the war of northern aggression’ down South,” Porter said.
In that same speech, Porter also made it clear that there’s no love lost between the NRA and President Obama, whom he called a “fake president.”
“His entire administration is anti-gun, anti-freedom, anti-second amendment,” Porter said.
And that was before Obama backed a new background checks bill and pushed for an assault weapons ban in Congress.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio