Romney is hardly a consistent Second Amendment defender, the author writes. Romney no straight shooter on NRA

When it comes to gun rights, Mitt Romney is anything but a straight shooter. And when the presumptive Republican nominee speaks to the National Rifle Association’s annual convention on Friday, he’s going to have a tough time explaining a Second Amendment record that’s more scattered than buckshot pellets.

I know a real sportsman when I see one. My eight siblings and I grew up in rural Scioto County, Ohio, where hunting and fishing were our heritage, passed from generation to generation. Throughout my service as a congressman and governor, I supported sportsmen, in both my lifestyle and legislation. I’ve been an unwavering supporter of citizens’ Second Amendment rights and recreational opportunities – I even extended them in Ohio – and I’ve fought against every effort to weaken them.


Romney is hardly a consistent Second Amendment defender, or a lifelong sportsman, or a longtime gun owner. But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that he pretends to be all these things, —pandering shamelessly to voters just as he does on every issue under the sun.

When Romney against Ted Kennedy ran for Senate in Massachusetts on a platform of gun-control measures like the Brady Bill and assault-weapons ban, he asserted, “I don’t line up with the NRA.”

Now he’s going to stand before that same group and — with a straight face - tell its members that he’s one of them. That dog won’t hunt, as the saying goes.

It won’t be the first time Romney’s misfired on this subject. When he later ran for governor, he promised he would veto any efforts to weaken the state’s gun laws. Later, he claimed the NRA had endorsed him in that election. Of course, it hadn’t.

And the NRA was right not to endorse back then. Once he became governor, Romney quadrupled fees on Massachusetts gun owners, making it harder for folks to get a license to carry their firearms.

But when Romney started running for president six years ago, he decided it was time to join the NRA. He even admitted that he did so merely to get the group’s blessing. I earned an “A” rating from the NRA by being an actual defender of the Second Amendment; Romney tried to sneak in the back door.

Romney has also been caught lying about his hunting experience and guns. “I’ve been a hunter pretty much all my life” he pandered in 2007, making the awkward claim that he hunts “small varmints.” What Romney neglected to mention is that he’d hunted only twice: First as a 15-year-old shooting rabbits, and then 45 years later, when he went quail hunting with some political donors.

The Romney campaign admitted a few months ago that its candidate bought two shotguns in the past five years – but not before he falsely claimed to be a gun owner. “Leave it to Mitt Romney, “ the Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi wrote, “to shoot himself in the foot with a gun he doesn’t own.”

He may try to talk the talk, but Romney’s been running for president longer than he’s been a gun owner.

It’s a question of credibility and values. The only way you can be on every side of gun owners’ rights, like Romney has, is if you have no core beliefs.

I’d put President Barack Obama’s record up against Romney’s any day. The president has made clear that he supports and respects the Second Amendment, and through three years in office he’s done exactly that. The NRA may not always agree with the president, but the American people know where he stands.

A president needs a steady hand – like a marksman. Romney’s certainly not the latter, and his record of pandering and misleading us on the subject is one of the many reasons he’s unqualified to be the former.

Ted Strickland is the former governor of Ohio and the co-chairman of the Obama reelection campaign.