With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
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Saturday, Jan. 27, 2001

Hypocrites & Wackos Top NRA Rosie Awards List

A collection of hypocritical politicians and just plain wackos are featured
in the National Rifle Association?s first annual Rosie awards, given to what
the NRA calls the most hypocritical enemies of the Second Amendment.

Named for talk show hostess Rosie O?Donnell, who demanded a complete ban on
handguns and then backed her own bodyguard?s application for a permit to
carry a concealed handgun, the awards were announced in the February issue of
the NRA?s America?s Freedom magazine.

Topping the list is President Bill Clinton, who the NRA said did more than
any other president to erode America?s gun rights while at the same time
insisting he had no desire to interfere with the rights of hunters and
recreational shooters.

Second on the list is former Vice President Al Gore, who the NRA charged
spent eight years “spewing antigun rhetoric at every opportunity” and then
spent the last few weeks of the presidential campaign “trying to reassure
hunters that he didn?t want to take away their guns.”

Among the other winners of this dubious honor are such liberal stalwarts as:

Sen. Joe Lieberman, who joined the gun-grabbers in an effort to ban so-called
assault weapons while at the same time maneuvering behind the scenes to have
those made by Colt – which is headquartered in Connecticut, his home state –
excluded from the blacklist.

Andrew Cuomo – described by the NRA as the Clinton-Gore point man on several
anti-gun initiatives – attempted to disarm some of the nation?s poorest and
most at-risk citizens, those living in government-subsidized housing, on the
grounds that as secretary of Housing & Urban Development he had the
dictatorial authority to do so. The NRA notes he was also the government?s
“attack dog” on the government?s agreement with Smith & Wesson.

Martin Sheen, described as being “symbolic of most of Hollywood in its gun
hypocrisy,” and having spent much of his career making a fortune by
glorifying gun violence, had the gall to appear in a commercial sponsored by
Sarah Brady?s Handgun Control Inc. attacking George Bush?s history as a
supporter of Second Amendment rights.

Million Mom March – When the NRA put up a million dollars to start a fund to
introduce a program to teach younger schoolchildren not to touch guns, the
Million Mom Marchers refused a challenge to join NRA and put up their own
million dollars, showing that their agenda does not include child safety, but
merely gun-grabbing.
Among the wackier recipients of honorable mention:

Linda Strong, a New Mexico sculptress who altered her statue of a water
pistol fight to eliminate the squirt gun because she realized it is a symbol
of violence.

The Tahunanui Kindergarten in Nelson, New Zealand, where the head teacher
instituted a program requiring her 4-year-old students to apply to the school
for a permit before they can use their fingers as imaginary guns and “shoot”
them in the playground.

Cynthia Carter, an Annapolis, Md., alderman who called for a government
“buyback” of toy guns and for making the manufacturing of toy guns a crime.
She said God told her to do it.

Associated Black Charities of Baltimore, which rejected a a mural of
abolitionist Harriet Tubman because it depicted her accurately as carrying a
gun. “We feel that in the year 2000 it is inappropriate for a piece of
artwork depicting guns and violence to be displayed on our wall in Baltimore,
which had more than 300 murders last year,” said Donna Jones-Stanley, the
group?s executive director, who, the NRA suggested, is unable to
differentiate between murder and self-defense.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Guns/Gun Control

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