The National Rifle Association endorsed presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Friday, after months of declining to support a candidate in the GOP primary race.
“In all of history there’s always been a time and a place when patriots stand up and rise up against the decree of the elites and shout, ‘No more. Get your hands off my freedom,'” NRA president Wayne LaPierre told a roomful of gun owners on Friday. “That time and place is now.”
“We have to unite and we half to unite right now,” the group’s executive director, Chris Cox, said shortly after LaPierre left the stage.
“So on behalf of the patriots in this room… I’m officially announcing the NRA’s endorsement of Donald Trump for president,” he added.
“The choice for gun owners in this election is clear,” Cox later said in a statement. “If Hillary Clinton gets the opportunity to replace Antonin Scalia with an anti-gun Supreme Court justice, we will lose the individual right to keep a gun in the home for self-defense.”
The NRA’s endorsement came just as Trump and a handful of his former opponents were set to address tens of thousands of gun owners Friday afternoon at its annual meeting in Louisville, Ky.
“I did not know that was happening. I will not let you down,” Trump said as he took the stage Friday.
Since entering the 2016 race last June, Trump has worked hard to convince gun rights activists he would be an ally to them as president.
The New York billionaire, who once wrote in his 2000 best-seller, “I support the ban on assault weapons,” released a Second Amendment position paper last fall in which he called for nationalizing concealed carry permits and suggested the best way to reduce crime is to “empower law-abiding gun owners to defend themselves.”
“Law-abiding people should be allowed to own the firearm of their choice,” he wrote at the time. “The government has no business dictating what types of firearms good, honest people are allowed to own.”
Prior to introducing Trump, Cox spent several minutes blasting his likely general election opponent, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton.
“Her ten years as Secretary of State will be remembered as ISIS rising and the world burning,” Cox said to a cheering audience.”Hillary, you’re a corrupt politician who will say anything to get elected.”
“We’re law-abiding Americans who aren’t scared of you or anybody else,” he added.
