NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Florida Senator Marco Rubio told National Rifle Association members Friday he believes the country is at a turning point on national security and the Second Amendment.
“We’ve all heard it said that the usefulness of the Second Amendment has run its course – that the purpose it served in the days of muskets no longer applies in the days of AR15s,” he said. “But the genius of our founders is not milk – it has no expiration date. It is more like wine – it gets more valuable with the passage of time.”
Rubio explained, “No politician would argue our First Amendment right to free speech is less valuable in the digital age than it was in the days of pen and paper. I believe it is equally outrageous to argue our Second Amendment is less valuable. The right to self-defense has not evolved, but the threats that require us to exercise it have.”
The Florida Republican focused his remarks on crime, saying, “We face shifting perils of domestic crime. We face the evolving threat of radical Islam. And we face occasional acts of cruelty that defy categorization, that lack the agenda of terrorism but transcend the label of crime, that are executed by sick minds and sick hearts – people willing to target the most vulnerable and innocent among us without cause, without warning and without mercy.”
Rubio stated that “these dangers are real” but can be overcome. However, he warned, it will not happen if the government is “focused more on restricting our law-abiding citizens than on restricting our enemies.”
He said, “American strength requires a president who executes his responsibility to protect our nation, and a people who exercise their right to protect themselves.”
Rubio later mocked Obama, saying, “Of all the duties of the president of the United States, our founders made clear which comes first. The position is not described as ‘taxer in chief’ or ‘regulator in chief,’ and certainly not as ‘golfer in chief.’ It is described first and foremost as commander in chief.”
Rubio told NRA members that he plans to announce in three days, at an event in Miami, if he intends to run for president of the United States, for reelection to the Senate, or for commissioner of the NFL.