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Glenn's Show Prep

NRA President David Keene weighs in on 2012 election

October 31, 2012
Wilson

Writer

Will an Obama victory mean a huge spike in gun sales? That's the prediction that Glenn made on radio this morning before he interviewed David Keene, President of the National Rifle Association. Glenn explains his prediction and talks to Keane about Tuesday's election and where Romney and Obama fall in terms of the second amendment.

Transcript of the interview is below:

GLENN: I'm going to make a prediction. If Wednesday Obama has won the election, the biggest day of gun sales in the history of the world will be that day. There will be more ammunition and more guns sold in the United States than any place at any time in the history of the planet next Wednesday. And let me make another prediction: If Obama wins, you are going to be very angry that you didn't buy your gun in advance because they're going to be hard to get, and ammunition will be hard to get. Because there will be a run on ammunition. Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't think anybody ‑‑ anybody who is an NRA member has any doubt on how much of a friend President Obama is to guns, and everybody will want to be grandfathered in.

David Keene, he's the president of the NRA. He's with us. How are you, sir?

KEENE: Just fine, Glenn. Glad to be with you.

GLENN: Do you agree with the prediction that I just made?

KEENE: I sure do. You know, right after his election in 2008, because of his history and because of what he said during that campaign and because of what he said right after the election about wanting to reimpose the Clinton gun ban and tax ammunition and the like, gun sales went way up because people were fearful that he was going to go after their guns. And the same thing's going to happen now because even though for the last year and a half like most liberal politicians, he's tried to downplay his position on the Second Amendment, during that town hall debate he got a question, as you remember, and I don't think he expected it. But he came out of the closet. It was if he said, okay, regardless about what I've said about supporting the Second Amendment, I don't. I'd like to reimpose the Clinton gun ban, I'd like to go after sidearms and when I get reelected, I'm going to do it.

GLENN: You know there's ‑‑

KEENE: So gun owners and everybody that believes in the Second Amendment who saw that debate knows that this is the same guy who campaigned against guns last time, who was an anti‑Second Amendment activist back in Chicago, long before he ever thought of running for public office and that if he gets an opportunity, he's going to go after the Second Amendment.

GLENN: Let me ‑‑ let me ask you this: Why is it so close in Colorado with so many gun owners in Colorado? There's no ifs, ands, and buts on the friendliness to guns with Barack Obama, and anybody who says, "Hey, transmit this to Vladimir; I'm going to have a little extra flexibility after the election," that's frightening.

KEENE: You know they did essentially the same thing to Sarah Brady of handgun control. He told her, "Right now, right now I have to operate under the radar, but I'm going to deliver for you." That's essentially the same thing he told the president of Russia: Let me get past this election and then watch my dust.

GLENN: Where's Mitt Romney on guns?

KEENE: He's committed to the Second Amendment. You saw that in the town hall debate. When Barack Obama said I want a whole bunch of new gun control laws, Mitt Romney came back and said we don't need any new laws. We need to prosecute criminals, we need to support the Second Amendment. Not only that but he's got on his ticket Paul Ryan who, you know, I thought about this the other day. I'm a Wisconsin boy and I grew up about 15 miles from Paul and I've known him for a long time and he's probably the most genuine outdoorsman nominated for either office on either ticket since the days of Teddy Roosevelt.

GLENN: Wow.

KEENE: I mean, this is a ticket that will be good on the Second Amendment and I think will be very good in terms of expanding the outdoor opportunities and the hunting opportunities and sporting opportunities for the American people. So I think there's absolutely no choice for anybody who's interested in the shooting sports or anybody who supports the Second Amendment or for anybody who's interested in being active in the outdoors.

GLENN: Yeah, I don't ‑‑ I mean, you know, I know everybody makes the, you know, outdoor and the hunter, you know, claim but that's not why the founders put that in there.

KEENE: No, it is not. It's not the reason.

GLENN: Yeah.

KEENE: It was put in there, as George Washington said at the time, a free people ought to be armed. And, you know, Glenn, whenever I think about it, I think about a banquet that took place in Moscow a few years ago honoring General Kalashnikov who during World War II invented the AK‑47 and it was on the occasion of his 85th birthday. Mr. Putin got up to toast the general. He's one of Russia's few heroes. And when he finished the toast, General Kalashnikov got up, looked him in the eye and said, "Mr. President, my dream is of a country like the United States governed by men and women not afraid of an armed citizenry.

Think about that. Most people in this world can only dream about the kind of country in which we've lived since the founding. And it's that that distinguishes us from the rest of the world.

GLENN: Well, we're sitting here now, we're looking at Department of Homeland Security and everything else and we just take it at the airport. We just take it. When they come to our houses, you're like, well, what am I going to do? Because they've lost their fear of the American people. And the more you regulate guns, the more we ‑‑ I mean, the first thing that happened is what's happening now: We disconnect from the Constitution. We don't know our rights, we don't stand up for our rights. We don't even talk about our rights. We talk more about your rights than our responsibilities, and we've lost the founders' understanding of the Constitution. But the only ‑‑ the other thing is carrying a gun, having a gun ‑‑ having a gun makes the government fearful of its citizens as it should be.

KEENE: Well, that's what the battle about the Second Amendment is really about, Glenn. It's not about crime. If it were about crime, then the folks who are anti‑gun would look at the empirical evidence of, for example, the fact that in every jurisdiction that has allowed concealed carry, violent crime has dropped.

GLENN: Well, I mean ‑‑

KEENE: They would realize that in those jurisdictions where guns are restricted, what they've done is they've disarmed victims and allowed predators free reign, Chicago being a great example. But it's not about guns, it's not about crime.

GLENN: Exactly.

KEENE: It's about the values that the Second Amendment and an armed citizenry represent to a government that does not believe people should have the freedom to make their own decisions.

GLENN: We have a ‑‑

KEENE: That's what it's about.

GLENN: We have a real split in America. I mean, it's amazing how half of America's going one way, I'd say even a third of America's going one way and, you know, the remaining part of America's going the other way. Today in Oklahoma, I think it's today, you can now carry it openly. Now it's not concealed carry anymore. You can wear it on your hip in Oklahoma.

KEENE: Well, there are a number of states where that's legal. 49 states allow concealed carry in one form or another. Barack Obama has said in the past that he favors a federal law that would ban concealed carry in all 50 states, including the 49 that now have it. I don't know about the other seven ‑‑

GLENN: Holy cow.

KEENE: ‑‑ that he has in his mind.

GLENN: Wait. So you mean that he's for the holster?

KEENE: No, he's not for the gun.

GLENN: (Laughing.)

KEENE: He doesn't ‑‑

GLENN: Because I'm okay with that, too.

KEENE: This is a guy who has said in the past, Glenn, that he doesn't think any American citizen has the right to privately own a firearm. He supported legislation that would ban the possession, sale, and manufacture of handguns in the United States. This is a guy who has been committed to stripping Americans of their gun rights throughout his entire professional and political career.

GLENN: But he is smart enough to know that he's never going to get around ‑‑ and this is what people say: Oh, he'll never get around the Second Amendment. Yes, he will, by doing things like supporting the 500% increase on the tax on ammunition and gun sales.

KEENE: Yeah, exactly. A lot of people don't realize that all of this is of a piece. If you increase the taxes on ammunition 500%, 1,000%, whatever, you're making it more and more difficult for average Americans to own firearms and use them, to be involved in the shooting sports, defend themselves. You can do the same thing by taxing guns, as his former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel wants to do for gun sales now in Chicago and Illinois.

GLENN: And bullets.

KEENE: Do all of those things, or you can eliminate gun dealers. And he's been harassing gun dealers and reduced the number of them since he's president.

GLENN: Big time.

KEENE: Think about this: When the Supreme Court issued the Heller decision which guarantees the right to individually and privately own firearms and said that in the District of Columbia ‑‑ because the original decision was about the district ‑‑ that you have a right to defend yourself by keeping a firearm in your home. The District of Columbia government said, "Okay, we recognize that, but you're going to have to buy it here in the district." The problem was there were no gun dealers that would sell to the general public in the district. And without the gun dealer, that right became an academic rather than a real right. There are all kinds of things. If you ban the manufacture of firearms, then what good does the right if you can't get them. In other words, there are a dozen, more than a dozen ways by bypassing the legislature, through regulatory harassment, through licensing, through executive orders, through a UN treaty that the president of the United States, if he's hostile to the Second Amendment and has a government that follows his orders, can get at the Second Amendment. And this is a guy who, if he can, will do just that.

GLENN: David Keene, president of the NRA. Thanks for being on and thanks for all of your hard work in this election season.

KEENE: Thank you.

GLENN: You bet. The NRA has done an awful lot in trying to get the word out because the Second Amendment is up for grabs. If this guy gets on again, mark my words: You better be at the gun store first thing on Wednesday if you want to be able to get one because they are going to go ‑‑ they are going to fly off the shelves, fly off the shelves. Ammunition. And as he continues his second term with more latitude, you will find things harder and harder to get. If you're smart, you might want to ‑‑ you might want to do it this week.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: Chart-topping ‘singer’ has no soul at all

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking shift: America’s youth lured by the “Socialism trap”

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Rage isn’t conservatism — THIS is what true patriots stand for

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.