MARCO RUBIO ADDRESSES THE 2015 NRA-ILA LEADERSHIP FORUM

Transcript

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a defense the Second Amendment is a prominent leader in the united states

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senate

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two years ago when NRA members were fighting the biggest assault on our

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freedom in two decades

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he stood with us on the front lines so please join me in welcoming

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a great Allah and great for new gun owners United States Senator Marco Rubio

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here

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thank you very much I'm honored I'm honored to be here someone asked me

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where you going

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I said I'm going to Nashville to an event where your

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the least likely is place to get Mike to this weekend is here

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safe is room in the country I'm honored to be with you here today

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I think we're joining together what I believe is a turning point for our

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nation on many different issues

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national security is one of them and Second Amendment

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is the other what I wanted to focus my remarks on today's

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at the point in which these two issues actually intersect now we've all heard

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it said that the usefulness of the second amendment

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has run its course that that the purpose is served in the days of muskets no

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longer applies in the days

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obey our 15th but the genius of our founders doesn't have an expiration date

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it's actually like wine it gets more valuable with the passage of time

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how much you think about this no politician would argue our first

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amendment right to free speech

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is less valuable in the digital age than it was in the days a pen and paper

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and therefore I believe it is equally outrageous for anyone to argue that our

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2nd Amendment right is less valuable today

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the right to self-defence here

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this basic right to sell for fat defense it is not involved

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but the threats that require us to exercise it certainly have

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today we face shifting pareles a domestic crime

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we face the evolving threat of radical Islam

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and we face the occasional acts of cruelty

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that defy categorization that lack an agenda

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terrorism but transcend the labeled crime better executed by sick minds and

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sick cards people willing to target the most

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vulnerable and innocent among us without a cause without warning without mercy

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all these dangers are real

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all of them can be overcome but they cannot be overcome by a government

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focused more on restricting are law-abiding citizens

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then on restricting our enemies he

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they can only be overcome by American strength an American strength requires

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are leaders and President to execute

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their responsibility to protect our nation and the people who exercise their

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right

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to protect themselves everyone in this room understand the simple fact

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that our current president does not strong defenses both on the national and

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the personal level are a means

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a protective preventing violence not a promoting it

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weakness on the other hand is the friend the danger

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and weakness is the enemy of peace President Obama

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has been a weak president he

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the only thing president Obama has strengthened over the last six years

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has been his own unlawful power to guarantee America strength in this

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century we need a new kind president one who starts doing what he's

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constitutionally required to do

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and stops doing what he is constitutionally forbidden

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to do the

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so let's let's start with what our presidents are required to do

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up all the duties of the President of the United States our founders made

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clear which one comes first

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the position is not described as the taxer and chief

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or the regulator and cheap and it's certainly not described as the golfer in

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chief

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now get a letter from the Golf Association always get mad when I said

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that I'm

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it's described first and foremost

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as the commander in chief and yet Pratt that President Obama has treated this

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duty like an afterthought

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he entered office believing that the united states wants to engage the world

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in too many places

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that we told people what to do too often and that's why they resented us

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that we just took a step back become a junior partner on the global stage

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allow other countries to take the lead that things would be better for america

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and the world

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but sadly it doesn't work like that

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the hard truth is that when Americans steps back

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there simply is no other nation willing or able

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to fill the void a global leadership and the result

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is chaos chaos that manifests itself in regional turmoil

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violent extremism in danger to our people and our global economy

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anyone who seeks the presidency must recognize that in this century

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there is no such thing as a remote problem our economies increasingly

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global

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and our people are increasingly bound to the affairs of the world

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a threat I have a spear way such as I sis

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coming can become a threat down the street almost overnight

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anyone who advocates averting our eyes from the dangers in the world must

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explain

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against six years have counter evidence how this would lead to a safer america.

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because it will not

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at the many threats we face today

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one of the greatest as the changing nature of Islamic extremism

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an enemy that despises us not because of what we do

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but because of who we are and terror set their sights not just on our military

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men and women

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but also on our cities in our towns they don't just focused on sending attackers

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from abroad

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but on recruiting those who will attack us from within

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and yet our president refuses

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to look but read a radical Islam in the eye and call it by its name

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even in January when terrorists stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris

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murdering 11 injuring 11 others he's still refuse to mention radical Islam

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and instead took the first chance he got to tell christians

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not to get on their high horse in condemning it let me be clear with you

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about something

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when we talk about radical Islam we are talking about an ideology that millions

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a peace-loving Muslims

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join us in condemning we are talking about an ideology the props children to

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be buried alive

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and women to be enslaved a young girls to be ritually abused

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an innocent people to be executed at their desks for having the audacity to

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exercise the human right to free speech

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and so mister president if condemning that puts us on a high horse

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I suggest we saddle up the

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and and not attack in Paris that attack in Paris was not isolated

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last year an attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels left four people dead

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in September after the be heading up an American journalist by the Islamic State

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a woman was beheaded at work in oklahoma then there was a car attack in Quebec

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a shooting at Calumet a at Canada's Parliament Ottawa

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an assault with a hatchet in New York City in attacking a synagogue in israel

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a deadly hostage crisis

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at a cafe in Australia all of them tied to islamic fundamentalism

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and those are only the beginning of course you remember the tragedy at the

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Boston Marathon two years ago this week

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but other threats are for old regularly in america

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you know that in the last year we have arrested more than 20% of our own people

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for attempting to join

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I sis or other terrorist groups many of them with the goal of bringing that

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terror back to our soil

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radical Islam is a serious threat around the world and here at home

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but as long as we have a president who does whose does not do what he's

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supposed to do

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our people have cause to fear

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but we had a president who did what he's supposed to do

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our people would have no cause for fear for the majority of instances a

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well-funded well-equipped military

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an adept intelligence community and a well-trained

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law enforcement agency will stop radicals and other enemies dead in their

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tracks

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often literally but there are some instances

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when our enemies are undetectable untraceable

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and their deeds unpredictable when homegrown

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its terrorist lash out in Long Wharf attacks one unstable individuals

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sometimes mentally ill sometimes evil

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attempt atrocities against innocent Americans and most commonly when the

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innocent

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are the target saddam predictable domestic crime with only themselves for

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protection

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until the police can be called the framers of our Constitution had a plan

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for these instances to

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and that brings me to what the president is constitutionally forbidden to do

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the presidential oath of office contains no Asterix it contains no fine print

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our presidents where's to preserve

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protect and defend the entire Constitution of the United States

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not just the party likes here

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thanks to the Second Amendment the president has no authority to limit the

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strength

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are law-abiding citizens the president has no authority to tell a father he

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cannot own a gun to defend his family and property

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the president has no authority to tell a young woman she is better off

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without the protection of a firearm the president has no authority

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to tell a hunter a sportsman or any law-abiding American

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what kind of weapon is right for him or her and it is bad enough that this

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administration has attempted these very things in routine moments

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for example with the failed ammunition ban earlier this year

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but it is even worse and the president has wielded human tragedy

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in an attempt to subvert our rights

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the sins are the evil do not justify restricting the rights

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the good here

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in fact

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the center the evil make those rights more critical because when our enemies

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come now

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they no longer come with six round revolvers

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stricter gun laws won't never deter criminals and terrorists

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la stop murders there wouldn't be murders in the first place

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in fact forty-two percent of the perpetrators a mass shootings already

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possess their guns

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illegally those who will be stopped or the law-abiding targets of these crimes

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it's very simple that stricter gun control laws

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the largest advance the larger the advantage we hand to the would-be

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attackers

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and the more gun free zones we establish the more tempting targets we've created

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here

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now some will be skeptical about what I just said maybe not any of you in this

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room but some

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so I ask you this question the next time you drive through your neighborhood

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count how many of your neighbors have signs announcing that their home

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is arm to the security system and I want you to compare that to how many of them

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have signs declaring their home to be a gun-free zone

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to our people the risk of announcing our lack of preparedness is obvious

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so why don't I leaders in Washington understand that

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whatever their miscalculation is it's a risk to all of us

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including Washington itself Washington DC makes a tempting target for enemies

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both foreign and domestic

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and yet nowhere in this country are the gun laws more restrictive than in DC

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our capital city is not just the location and government leaders

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its biz filled with visiting school students and turning families

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and it is inexcusable that in washington the seat of our people's power

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the constitutional right to bear arms is constantly in jeopardy

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and that's why I took action last month

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to roll back the Seas restrictive gun laws

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my legislation my legislation would allow DC's law-abiding residents and

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visitors

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firearms to protect their homes their businesses and their families

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and this legislation will bring strength to DC on the Citizen level

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but washington needs strengthen another sense as well

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and the strength I'm talking about won't come from a bill

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it will come from a president who understands the world is that it's

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safest

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when america is at its strongest it will come from a president who understands

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that america is at its strongest when are people are out there freest

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and it will come from a president who understands that he has a duty

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that must never be neglected and our people have a right

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that must never be denied

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so let me close let me close cuz I'm running outta water

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let me close by are let me close by the

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with a look ahead so I began my remarks saying our nation has reached a turning

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point on many issues

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I believe that fact is beyond debate

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I think what yet to be determined its which direction will it turn

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everything that's at stake in our next election from the future the second

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amendment to the security of our people

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in a global world to the financial opportunities available to everyone

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it all combines together into a challenge that I believe will define

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our generation and that is the future of the American dream

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my parents came to America 1956

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little more than their dreams of a better life but over time my dad working

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as a bartender in a hotel in

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my mother working as a maid a stock clerk a cashier at Kmart

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they were able to achieve the American dream

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because the real American dream isn't about how big your house is

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the real American Dream is not about how many things you own on the day you die

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the real American Dream is about having a job that pays a comfortable wage

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it's about raising your family in a safe neighborhood and having the right to

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defend them

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it's about seeing your children earn a good education

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it's about having the freedom to do the things you value with the people that

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you love

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it's about retiring with dignity after a long

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who life and hard work the American Dream is about one more thing more than

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any other

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it's about giving your children the chance to do the things

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you never could go to the places you can never go

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and open the doors that were close to you my parents achieve this train

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but many people today find it slipping out of reach

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not because our world in our economy are pushing the boundaries in the 21st

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century

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but our government remains stuck in the 20th century

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the question facing our generation is this

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will we reclaim the American dream for all Americans

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by reforming in modernizing Washington by applying the genius of our founding

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to the challenges of our time

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where were you when I become the first generation in history to leave our

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children

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worse off than ourselves that is the question that will define this

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generation

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and I for one have an answer in mind and so in just three days in Miami I will

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announce

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whether I will run for president for reelection to the senate or for

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Commissioner the National Football League

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and a

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the NFL Commissioner is probably a little too powerful for me so we may

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have to

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but regardless of what I decide to do about my future

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the upcoming election will not be about any one person

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for no problem facing our nation can be solved by any single person working

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alone

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and that's why I am so grateful for the work each have you

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and all NRA members are doing every single day

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the american people will never achieve the American dream as they are not safe

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like living in a safe neighborhood going to work in a safe office

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going about our daily lives without fear for ourselves our children

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these are the goals fundamental to the american dream and a strong second

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amendment will insure

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a strong america for your family for my family

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and for every family in this nation so thank you for what you do

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thank you for your work god bless our country thank you thank you

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