By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — The chief executive officer of the National Rifle Association said in a talk here today he worries about the future of gun rights if President Obama is re-elected and makes more nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I believe that the Second Amendment hangs by one vote, and this 2012 election could break the back of it one way or the other,” said Wayne LaPierre, the association’s CEO and executive vice president, in a packed room at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service.

(From left) Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association, chats with U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin, R-Little Rock, and state Attorney General Dustin McDaniel after giving a talk Tuesday in Little Rock. (John Lyon photo)

LaPierre, who has held his current post since 1991, said Obama already has named two people to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, who LaPierre believes “will spend the next 30 years trying to gut the Second Amendment.”

The high court ruled 5-4 in 2008 that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to own a firearm for private use. Last year, the court ruled 5-4 that the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the individual right to bear arms applies to state and local gun laws.

Sotomayor joined the court in time to vote with the minority in the latter decision. Kagan joined the court later.

“Those cases, I believe that the court said what all Americans already knew, that it (the Second Amendment) was their individual right,” LaPierre said.

“That being said, the Supreme Court is not the final authority on anything, the people are in this country, and the people are determined to protect the Second Amendment,” he said. “I believe the people will take advantage of whatever process is available to them to protect that freedom.”

LaPierre told reporters later that the NRA is not ready to endorse any potential challenger to Obama’s re-election bid.

Obama’s re-election campaign did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment.

LaPierre also criticized media coverage of incidents such as the 1998 Jonesboro school shootings and this year’s shootings near Tucson, Ariz., that critically injured U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others.

“They put his (accused shooter Jared Lee Loughner’s) photograph everywhere, despite the fact that every criminal profiler, every FBI profiler in the world tells the media that airing the photographs of mass murderers is the last thing the media should do. They all say it turns the madman into a hero for every potential deranged copycat out there,” he said.

LaPierre also complained that “political opportunists all rush to advance their political agendas” after such incidents.

“The media and the political elites want us to believe that if we just pass another law or two, we could stop a madman in this country who’s bent on violence. That is dishonest,” he said. “When they tell you that a government ban on certain firearms or magazines is somehow going to make you safer, don’t buy it, not for a minute.”

In 1994, then-President Bill Clinton signed into law a ban on certain semi-automatic firearms. The so-called assault weapons ban expired in 2004.

LaPierre said the law banned guns that were no different from guns not included in the ban, except for “a few cosmetic accessories” that did not affect their speed or power of firing.

“The reason it expired is because Congress found out the truth,” he said.

Asked by an audience member if he supported any restrictions on gun ownership, LaPierre said, “The issue is about dangerous people. It’s not about devices.”

LaPierre said gun rights should be expanded, not limited, and people who use guns to commit crimes should be prosecuted more aggressively.

“It’s time to acknowledge what we all know in our hearts to be true: That the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” he said.

According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which advocates for stricter gun laws, a gun is 22 times more likely to be used in a suicide, an attempted suicide, a criminal assault, a homicide or an unintentional shooting than in a self-defense shooting.

Out of 30,000 gun deaths in the U.S. each year, about 200 are legally justified self-defense homicides, according to the Brady group.

Some in the audience today gave LaPierre a standing ovation at the end of his talk. Attorney General Dustin McDaniel and U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin, R-Little Rock, dropped in as the program was ending and chatted briefly with LaPierre.

“I’m at your service,” McDaniel told him.