Rand Paul is running for president. (Photo: CNN)
Rand Paul announced Tuesday that he will run for president in 2016.
“Today I announce with God’s help, with the help of liberty lovers everywhere, that I’m putting myself forward as a candidate for president of the United States of America,” Paul said at an address in Louisville.
Along with making his bid official, Paul had a “message” to deliver.
“I have a message. We have come to take our country back,” exclaimed Paul.
“The Washington machine that gobbles up our freedoms and invades every nook and cranny of our lives must be stopped,” Paul declared. “It seems to me that both parties and the entire political system are to blame.”
Paul seems to be positioning himself as an anti-establishment candidate. As it relates to firearms, the first-term Kentucky senator is unashamedly pro-Second Amendment.
In 2013, Paul led the GOP charge to filibuster a wave of restrictive gun bills — including universal background checks, bans on so-called “assault weapons” and “high capacity magazines”— that were part of president Obama’s gun-control agenda created in the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
As a result of Paul’s leadership, not one of the bills cleared the Senate. While many politicians talk the talk about respecting and protecting one’s fundamental right to keep and bear arms, Sen. Paul certainly walks the walk.