The NRA's CEO and executive vice president Wayne LaPierre believes November's midterm elections are essential to help restore the vanishing freedoms Americans are guaranteed under the Constitution.
"They're critical," LaPierre said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV's "The Steve Malzberg Show."
"If all of our freedoms — whether it's our freedom of speech or religion — get sucked under, the Second Amendment won't survive for long," he said.
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LaPierre is author of the new book,
"America Disarmed: Inside the U.N. and Obama's Scheme to Destroy the Second Amendment," published by WND Books.
The National Rifle Association has also kicked off a campaign to educate Americans about the upcoming election and its importance in the future of the country. Republicans are hoping to recapture the Senate, giving them a majority in both houses.
"That's what elections are about: preserving our values and our freedoms," LaPierre said.
"All over the heartland of America, I believe and people believe [that] recent elections have put all of this at risk.
"That's why we made this campaign; to have the NRA say what so many people want to say and speak right to the heart of the heartland that's been left behind."
LaPierre said he's noticed the mood of the nation plummeting into despair in recent years.
"Everywhere you go in the country over the last year or two people put their heads down and they go, 'I've never been worried about this country until now,'" he said. "They say it not with anger, but they say it with sadness in their eyes. There's a sense of collapse, like the character of the country is at risk. It's all gone up the rails.
"They feel vulnerable, and our freedoms are being diminished, and they feel like no one's fighting back."
LaPierre added that Americans feel "vulnerable" and frustrated by the Obama administration's lackluster and liberal leadership, which has included a push for more restrictive gun laws.
"They look at the collapse of our southern border … they see a selective enforcement of the laws, a sense of collapse all around them, a president who in so many ways has checked out," he said.
"They see a chattering political and a media elite, where it seems like they are gaming the system, like it's all an inside game while the country is falling apart."
The NRA's campaign is founded on "very simple questions," LaPierre said, "Like, do you still believe in mom and dad? Do you still believe in the golden rule? Does anyone believe the media is doing an honest job?
"It's founded on things like privacy, freedom of speech, the kinds of behaviors, values, and freedoms that good people still believe in.
"It's never been more important than right now in our country's history for the good guys to step forward and come forward for freedom … It's our country, and it's time for the good guys to come forward and take it back."
Earlier this year, LaPierre warned that 2014 could be the year that Americans could start losing their gun rights protected under the Second Amendment.
"This year's election will decide whether we stop the Barack Obama-Joe Biden-Michael Bloomberg gun-ban machine and save the right to keep and bear arms — or lose much of our Second Amendment freedoms for generations to come," he wrote in an opinion piece last March for The Daily Caller.
LaPierre told Steve Malzberg on Wednesday that he has recently gotten involved in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, to benefit in the research and cure of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
"It's a good cause. All of us have probably been touched in some way and known someone with ALS, and it's a horrible illness. Anything we can do to help raise money is a good cause," LaPierre said. "A lot of people have called me out. I was proud to do it, and I called out a bunch of people."
Among those he said have accepted the challenge are retired former U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Oliver North and NASCAR driver Austin Dillon.
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