Craig Taken To Task For Rhetoric Nra Letter Contributes To Climate Of Fear, State Democratic Chairman Says

State Democratic Chairman Bill Mauk on Friday called on Republican Sen. Larry Craig, as a member of the National Rifle Association board, to denounce an inflammatory NRA fund-raising letter he claims is fostering the confrontational atmosphere in the state and the nation.

But a spokesman for the state’s senior senator said that while some of the rhetoric is extreme, Craig was not going to question NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre’s right to use it.

The letter, sent last month to NRA members apparently before the Oklahoma City bombing, seeks contributions to finance the organizations campaign against any restrictive gun legislation.

It claims last years automatic weapons ban “gives jack-booted government thugs more power to take away our constitutional rights, break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property and even injure or kill us. … In Clinton’s administration, if you have a badge, you have the government’s go-ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law-abiding citizens.”

Mauk called on Craig to publicly reject the letter as reckless exaggeration that fuels “a climate of fear, hatred, distrust and militancy” and tell Idahoans he will exert leadership as an NRA director to cool the rhetoric.

“For months, Larry Craig has made it his personal crusade to undermine the integrity and authority of federal agents who daily risk their lives in a battle against crime and drug trafficking,” Mauk said.

“He seems to have forgotten that these same law enforcement agencies he so readily condemns for Waco and Ruby Ridge are the same agencies that capture the terrorist responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing,” he said. “Senator Craig, like the leadership in the NRA, seems to have lost all sense of balance, objectivity and reality on this matter.”

But Craig chief of staff Greg Casey said the senator is only one of scores of NRA directors.

“Obviously, that’s not the kind of rhetoric maybe Larry Craig would use or even prefer,” Casey said. “It may at times seem a bit intemperate. But it is not Larry Craig’s position to judge the extent to which some one can exercise his right to free speech.”

Mauk’s comments came a day after Craig suggested disarming officers who patrol national forests and ranges.

Mauk said his remarks were not prompted by those comments.