Arizona's Sen. John McCain, who once proposed cracking down on gun-show sales, told the National Rifle Association on Friday that he will oppose any "separate agenda" to rein in gun owners' rights as part of an effort to stop illegal gun-running to violent Mexican drug cartels.
"We can and should do more to crack down on the illegal transfer to Mexico of weapons acquired in the United States, which is a violation of both U.S. and Mexican law. But that doesn't require us to restrict the rights of law-abiding American gun owners," McCain said to applause at the NRA's 138th annual meeting, which is being held in downtown Phoenix.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon is waging a war against his country's powerful drug cartels. The drug organizations also are fighting each other for the most lucrative drug- and immigrant-smuggling routes into the United States.
McCain told several thousand conventioneers that cartels threaten the security of the United States because America doesn't have a secure southern border and has a big appetite for illegal drugs from Mexico. Kidnappings tied to drug and immigrant smuggling have earned Phoenix the title of America's kidnapping capital.
McCain, the 2008 Republican candidate who lost the election to President Barack Obama, also took aim at the White House's assertion, widely circulated in the media, that nine of 10 guns confiscated from drug lords are linked to the United States.
"The claim made by administration officials that 90 percent of the arms seized from the Mexican drug cartels came from the United States is not true," McCain said flatly. "More accurate is the
statistic that 90 percent of the guns the Mexican government has asked our government to trace are of U.S. origin. But it is not 90 percent of all arms seized. The fact is that weapons manufactured in the United States are actually stamped 'Made in the USA,' which allows them to be more easily traced than those manufactured in other countries."
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said Democrats are using violence reported in the news to frighten the public and push proposals, such as a revival of the expired assault-weapons ban, that would restrict the gun rights of law-abiding people. "In February, President Obama's administration concocted a crazy theory that crime in Mexico could and should be prevented by banning guns in America," Steele said.
McCain stressed the need to help Calderon fight drug cartels but said restricting Second Amendment rights won't affect the ability of the cartels to acquire anti-tank missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, fully automatic machine guns, mortars and improvised explosive devices. "I don't need to tell this audience that none of these weapons are available for civilian sale in the United States," he said.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who has asked the federal government for more National Guard troops to respond to her state's problems from immigrant and drug smuggling, told conventioneers the answer to violence along America's Southwestern border shouldn't be to take away gun rights.
"The issue is to secure the border and leave the Second Amendment freedoms alone," Brewer said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
NOTE: Sen. McCain received a Standing Ovation from the NRA after his speech!
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