Martin Dyckman's brand of hate is not new. (“NRA Leaders Are Old-Fashioned Anarchists,” Florida Voices, Dec. 26) For decades he has attacked the NRA and gun owners, inventing facts to score phony points.

The NRA never has been, and never will be, "moderate" in its defense of the Second Amendment and freedom in America.  The NRA was formed to protect America’s freedoms--starting with our earliest mission of providing firearms training for those who might be called to serve our country and continuing with our training programs today, which teach private citizens and law enforcement officers alike to defend themselves and their communities.

And when our constitutional rights came under threat from those like Dyckman who would disarm America, we took up the mission of protecting the Second Amendment, which is at the very heart of freedom and safety for the law-abiding.

Dyckman suggests that the NRA is an anarchistic “relic,” but the real
relics are those who cling to their misguided gun ban policies as a solution to the ills that plague society.

Instead of blaming poor parenting for producing gang-bangers, they blame guns.

Instead of blaming the misguided closure of mental health facilities where the troubled could get treatment and help, rather than roaming our streets and filling homeless shelters and prisons, they blame guns.

Instead of supporting the same security for our schoolchildren that we
provide banks, courthouses, and even news media offices, they blame guns.

Dyckman claims the NRA "could be reasonable" when he knows full well that we support reasonable laws to stop criminals, drug abusers and the mentally incompetent from purchasing or possessing guns.  We support laws that target criminals who use guns to commit crimes.  We support laws to stop gun trafficking, such as the Obama Administration engaged in during "Operation Fast and Furious."

Dyckman attacks the NRA for having the “gall” to promote school security options that don’t infringe on constitutional rights. Instead, he demands more laws that have been proven to fail in the real world. Now, that is real gall.

Marion P. Hammer was president of the National Rifle Association from 1995 to 1998 and still serves on the NRA board of directors. She has been a NRA lobbyist in Tallahassee for more than 30 years and was instrumental in the legislature’s passage of the controversial Stand Your Ground law. 

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