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U.S. Rep. Diane Black is a Republican candidate for Tennessee governor.(Photo: Erik Schelzig / AP)The political arm of the National Rifle Association endorsed U.S. Rep. Diane Black's bid for the Republican nomination for governor Thursday. The coveted endorsement comes just weeks before Black is set to square off against state House Speaker Beth Harwell, Knoxville entreprenuer Randy Boyd and Williamson County businessman Bill Lee in the Aug. 2 primary election.Early voting for the election begins July 13.While endorsing Black, Chris Cox, chairman of the NRA's political victory fund, said, "Diane Black has a perfect record on Second Amendment issues and we enthusiastically endorse her candidacy.” The NRA noted that Black co-sponsored the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act [3]— which has been approved in the House, but delayed in the Senate and requires states to recognize such permits regardless of where they are issued. “As a concealed carry permit holder, Diane Black doesn’t just vote the right way on the Second Amendment, she actively exercises her constitutional right to self-protection and is passionate about safeguarding the right of all law-abiding Tennesseans to protect themselves and the people they love,” Cox said.
The NRA's Chris Cox at the 2016 Republican National Convention (Photo: Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY)Black has said she bought a gun because she was attacked by three men in 1994 while in a parking lot on the campus of Vanderbilt University. "They beat me up, they broke my cheekbone and they ruptured a disk in my back. And there was no one there to help me," Black said in a radio ad that ran in 2016[4].Although Black says she resolved to never be a victim again, she did not get her 