Sarah Palin tells NRA attendees: ‘Waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists’

Speaking at the National Rifle Association's annual convention in Indianapolis former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin told a packed house, "Waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists."

According to The Hill, the former half-term governor prefaced her comments about waterboarding with “if I were in charge.”

"They obviously have information on plots to carry out jihad,” Palin said. "Oh, but you can’t offend them, can’t make them feel uncomfortable, not even a smidgen. Well, if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.”

Palin's comments stand in stark contrast with the opinions of the man who selected her as his running mate, Sen. John McCain, who was tortured for years while held in a Vietnamese prison camp.

“In my personal experience, the abuse of prisoners sometimes produces good intelligence, but often produces bad intelligence because under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear –- whether it is true or false –- if he believes it will relieve his suffering,” McCain once said.

Addressing the main topic of conversation at the NRA convention, Palin linked common sense gun control legislation to a complete loss of freedom and possessions in America.

"Do you know why those clownish little Kumbaya-humming fairytale-inhaling liberals want to be tough all of a sudden and control your guns?” she said. “It’s ‘cuz guys like [Sen.] Al Franken (D-MN) and [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid (D-NV), they're not satisfied with just taking your money and your job, your truck and your property and your rights, your healthcare – they didn’t want to just stop at that.”

Referring to Attorney General Eric Holder's suggestion that technology advances, like a bracelet that interacts with a weapon, might help stem the flood of shootings, Palin referenced the many bracelets she wears that commemorate fallen soldiers and various other American causes.

“You can have these bracelets when you pry them past my cold, dead hands,” she said, echoing a popular NRA bumper sticker from the 70's.