The immediate past president of the National Rifle Association on Tuesday endorsed Asa Hutchinson in his run for governor.
David Keene, who served as the group's president from 2011 and 2013 and is now the opinion editor for The Washington Times, said the NRA will not endorse Hutchinson or opponent Mike Ross because both have good voting records with the NRA and that's the only basis for its endorsements.
But, in making his own endorsement of Hutchinson, Keene pointed to remarks Ross made in the wake of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that he suggested showed Ross for a time was in favor of restrictions to ban high-capacity weapons.
"That was a tough time for a lot of people," Keene said of the year after the school shooting and calls to restrict certain weapons. "And at the outset of that struggle, all bets were off. And a lot of people panicked. And a lot of people headed for the tall grass ... Asa's opponent, when he was in Congress, always voted for Second Amendment rights. But when tragedy hit and he was retiring from Congress and the administration called, he headed to the tall grass."
In a Dec. 19, 2012, story by the Stephens Washington Bureau, Ross was quoted as saying he thinks it's "time to address whether there really is a legitimate need for high-capacity weapons that can shoot you know a lot of rounds of ammunition."
Keene noted Ross "later backed off" that support and that such a ban never came up for a vote. But Hutchinson, he said, never wavered and also led an NRA effort to recommend school safety improvements after Sandy Hook.
Ross's campaign says he is anti-gun control and he said earlier this year that he will "oppose any and all efforts to restrict the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners in Arkansas."