Stolen From the NRA Site

July 23rd, 2013

Nancy Pelosi: Congress Must Uphold Constitution By Passing Gun Control

She called for expanded background checks in a press release.

Examiner.com | JOE NEWBY

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According to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., members of Congress must pass strict gun control measures in order to uphold their oath to protect and defend the Constitution, CNS News reported Monday.

"In Congress, there can be no more fitting memorial to the lives lost in Aurora, in Newtown, and across the country than a concerted effort to enact commonsense gun safety legislation," she said in a press release marking the one-year anniversary of the Aurora movie shooting.
"We must uphold our oath to ‘protect and defend’ the constitution and all Americans by expanding background checks and keeping dangerous firearms out of the wrong hands," she added.
Erich Pratt, director of communications for Gun Owners of America, called Pelosi's remarks "breathtaking" in an interview with CNS News. “She actually stated that she wants to uphold the Constitution by enacting additional background checks on gun purchases."
“I wonder which country’s constitution she is referring to, because ours clearly makes no allowances for gun control,” Pratt added.
“If Pelosi really wants to apply the lessons from Aurora, Colorado in order to save lives,” he said, “she will work to repeal gun laws that discourage good people from carrying firearms.”
But, as CNS News pointed out, her oath does not include the phrase “to protect and defend the Constitution.” That phrase is found in the oath taken by the president, not members of Congress.
The oath Pelosi took at the start of the 113th Congress, CNS said, reads: “I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. [So help me God.]”
It's not the first time Pelosi has publicly exhibited apparent ignorance of the Constitution.
In February, for example, she declared the right to keep and bear arms exists in the First Amendment, not the Second.
"We avow the First Amendment," she told Fox News' Chris Wallace. "We stand with that and say that people have a right to have a gun to protect themselves in their homes and their jobs, where, and that they -- and the workplace and that they, for recreation and hunting and the rest. So we're not questioning their right to do that."

Wallace did not correct Pelosi's gaffe.