“We have our own Second Amendment in the state of Louisiana,” Bobby Jindal told the crowd gathered at the National Rifle Association’s annual summit in Houston. President Obama, he assured them, “won’t be able to touch our right to keep and bear arms in the great state of Louisiana.”
In a wide-ranging speech sure to further speculation about his plans for a 2016 presidential campaign, the Louisiana governor, who has recently struggled with low approval ratings in his state, touched on topics from his parents’ immigration to the United States to the nature of freedom in the country today. The president, he said, simply “does not believe in the transformative and dynamic power of freedom.”
The crux of Jindal’s remarks, however, focused on the Second Amendment, which he accused Obama of attacking from his “very first days in office.” “It’s one of the primary reasons I opposed his reelection,” Jindal explained to the audience of over five thousand. He pointed in particular to the president’s nomination of Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor, who does not believe the constitutional right to “keep and bear arms” applies to individuals. “That’s pretty close to the top [of the Bill of Rights], so I wonder when she stopped reading,” Jindal quipped.
He urged the crowd to remain engaged in the fight for liberty that he said falls to each generation. “All of our rights are dependent on a people willing to fight for that freedom,” he said. “I am ready to stand and fight for that freedom.” And he concluded: “May God bless America, and may God bless the NRA.”