NRA slams Obama's inauguration speech: Obama 'wants to turn absolutism into a dirty word'

(CBS NEWS) -- Wayne LaPierre, the CEO of the National Rifle Association, said President Obama's inaugural address was an attack on law-abiding gun owners, insisting that the president wants to take away people's guns.

Reacting to Mr. Obama's line,"We cannot mistake absolutism for principle," LaPierre said the president "wants to turn absolutism into a dirty word" and said the president is using it as another word for "extremism."

The outspoken head of the NRA has mounted a full-throated defense in recent weeks against any effort to invoke stricter gun laws. He said the president thinks anyone who disagrees with him is an "absolutist" and that he "doesn't agree with the freedoms [gun owners] cherish."

After the massacre in Newtown, Conn., where 27 people were killed, the president proposed a series of gun-related executive orders and congressional actions, including a ban on assault weapons, limits on high-capacity magazine clips and the creation of a national database of gun transactions.

LaPierre took issue with each of the proposals, including what he called a "massive federal [gun] registry." He said its only purpose is to "tax 'em or take 'em."

Invoking an anti-government thread in his speech, LaPierre said political leaders "take for themselves" and that gun owners "believe in the right to defend ourselves with semiautomatic firearm technology."

LaPierre's speech to a group of hunting and wildlife enthusiasts in Reno, Nev., Tuesday was devoted entirely to slamming the president's gun control proposals, saying that law-abiding citizens would have fewer rights than criminals, political "elites and their bodyguards."