NRA chief: Public cannot ‘trust’ White House on gun control

The head of the National Rifle Association (NRA) said Sunday the public should not trust the White House to pursue limited changes to gun-control laws.

Wayne LaPierre, chief executive of the NRA, accused the Obama administration of wanting to seek more restrictions on guns than they currently are saying, arguing that the White House was similarly deceptive on the president's healthcare law.

"I think what they'll do is they'll turn this universal [background] check on the law-abiding into a universal registry on law-abiding people," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

When pressed by host Chris Wallace on the fact that the White House has said nothing about a universal registry, LaPierre responded, "And 'ObamaCare' wasn't a tax until they needed it to be a tax. I don't think you can trust these people."

LaPierre was referring to the administration arguing the healthcare law amounts to a tax before the Supreme Court — an argument the high court agreed with in upholding the individual-mandate portion of the law as a valid use of taxing power.

On Sunday, LaPierre continued his efforts to stem momentum for new gun-control legislation in the wake of the school shooting in Newtown, Conn. He contended that a universal background check would not be workable, in part because of the lack of digitized mental health records and the fact that criminals would not seek out guns in that fashion.

"It's a fraud to call it universal. It's never going to be universal," he said. "The criminals aren't going to cooperate with it, they could care less…we ought to call it the check on law-abiding citizens of this country."

He also pushed back on any attempt to limit the types of weapons an American can purchase or the amount of ammunition a magazine could hold. The White House and Democrats are pushing to ban high-capacity magazines like the ones used by Jared Loughner in the Arizona shooting of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and others.

"If you limit their ability to use semiautomatic technology, you limit their ability to survive," LaPierre argued.

"You ought to be able to have what you need to protect yourself, not what some politician thinks is reasonable," he added.

---