National Rifle Association President Jim Porter wrote that “the big gorilla in the room is Obama's lawless approach to governing” in a Daily Caller op-ed. Porter also claimed that a “corruption of power” by President Obama could mean “the wondrous stability of our nation could end.”

As with other conspiratorial opinion pieces published by NRA leadership in the Daily Caller's “Guns and Gear” section, Porter's claims are unsupported by facts.

Claiming that “gun owners have become victims of Obama's abuse of power,” Porter wrote in his February 19 op-ed that "[i]n contravention of absolute congressional spending bans, Obama has ordered the Centers for Disease Control, in effect, to create a massive gun-ban propaganda and lobbying agenda to treat gun ownership as a public health menace."

But the Obama administration has not ordered the CDC “to create a massive gun-ban propaganda and lobbying agenda.” In reality, the Obama administration's January 2013 presidential memorandum asked the CDC to "[c]onduct or sponsor research on the causes and prevention of gun violence and the ways to prevent it." The Obama administration has noted that the CDC cannot, under federal law, “advocate or promote gun control,” but that “research on gun violence is not advocacy; it is critical public health research that gives all Americans information they need.”

The Obama administration action was a reaction to lobbying by the NRA that seeks to prevent the CDC from conducting research on gun violence. The Obama administration subsequently issued an executive action that asked Congress to appropriate $10 million to fund further CDC research into gun violence. As the Obama administration suggested, gun violence is a major public health concern that is described by the American Medical Association as an “epidemic.”

Porter also argued in his column that “The one uniting issue for Americans should be, and must be, to stop Obama's theft and abuse of power.”

Succeeding conservative activist David Keene as NRA president in May 2013, Porter is a longtime NRA official who previously chaired the group's Civil Rights Defense Fund. Porter's ascension to NRA president brought media scrutiny to his past claim that the Civil War was the “War of Northern Aggression.”