No Palin

Looks like Sarah Palin isn’t going to be presented that AR-15 afterall, because she’s not going to be at the Annual Meeting:

The National Rifle Association Foundation will not present an assault weapon to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at an upcoming banquet despite media reports about the event, including one from its own magazine.

“The event is not happening,” NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said. “Sarah Palin will not be attending. She was invited, but declined due to a family commitment. This happened weeks ago.”

Several newspapers picked up a story published in the May issue of the NRA’s American Rifleman magazine that said the governor would be given a custom AR-15 at the foundation’s May 16 banquet.

That’s for letting the rest of us know guys!  I know last year a lot of folks wondered why NRA never presents black rifles, instead of a well appointed flintlock rifle.  This is a reason why.  Let’s hope that “family commitment” didn’t have anything to do with not wanting to endure yet another media feeding frenzy pointing out “Look at the backwards hick from Alaska getting herself a machine gun!”   We know it’s not true, but a lot of people don’t know any better, and politicians hate that kind of controversy.

20 thoughts on “No Palin”

  1. I wonder how thrilled people will be when they realize she isn’t coming. I know we received a 3 page letter touting her as the big draw to encourage us to attend the Annual Meeting. I posted about it and mentioned it with the Bash stuff because the letter specifically promoted her as receiving the Harlon Carter Award and listed the other speakers as invited only.

    I’ll also add that the flintlock rifles are actually a work of art. I don’t get people who trash them because they personally want a different gun. These aren’t pieces you take to the range every week. I would much rather have the flintlock because those are incredible.

  2. I second that emotion on the presentation flintlock rifle. I wouldn’t think of trading an AR-platform rifle, no matter how “custom”, for the chance to own one of those fabulous hand-built pieces of American Rococo art that combine architecture, wood carving, metalwork, engraving, etc. They are a unique American art form, developed here and found nowhere else in the world.

  3. You know, when more than 140 people came the the Blog Bash site (farther down in the search results than the actual NRA sites) looking for information on when Sarah Palin will be speaking at the meeting, I suspect there are going to be thousands of upset people.

  4. Summer is a busy season for Alaskans and she does have a new baby to care for.

    Aside from that, Gov. Palin keeps getting hit with bogus ethics complaints from in-state Dems, both in and out of the Legislature, who seem to hate her for being who she is.

    Every time she even looks at an invitation from some outside group (especially one seen as “conservative”) they start throwing allegations that she is “neglecting her state duties” and/or “working on her Presidential campaign” and file FOIA’s to see if she touched any state owned equipment while reading.

    The current slavering unreason about Palin in some quarters, it isn’t enough to merely disagree with her positions for some people it seems, would be laughable if it weren’t so frightening and annoying.

    1. You can’t put 50,000 NRA members in the same category as “some outside group.” If she wants a future in national politics, this is one group she should play to. The NRA convention is bigger than CPAC and all of the other “conservative” events.

      Canceling this gig was not brilliant.

  5. “Canceling this gig was not brilliant.”

    Nor was making her a headline event before nailing everything down. Or, after finding out she declined, getting out ahead of the story “weeks ago”.

    This makes both Palin and the NRA look bad.

  6. The custom flintlocks given away at those events are easily worth 2 or 3 black rifles market value, and are a piece of art to boot. I’d much rather have a custom pennsylvania longrifle than an AR-15 for my collection.

    Then again, being an F&I war reenactor for 10 years, I’m a bit biased :)

  7. I’d take a custom AR over a fuddlock….er, flintlock rifle any day of the year.
    IMHO the AR is the most beautiful rifle ever produced.

  8. I’m sure she would have gotten an ethics complaint filed against her for accepting a rifle at an NRA banquet.

  9. Regrettably her legal expenses are over 500K due to these ethics complaints . She can’t afford to travel for our pleasure. She has to stay low. She is constantly lt targeted by the left.

    The one thing Palin does not have to brush up is her bonafides as 2A supporter. So she already has this support and does not need to go to the conventiom. She never has before and it is 3 years before competing for the next election.

    1. The convention isn’t about her pro-gun creds. It’s about reminding 50,000, plus the hundreds of thousands who would read it in the news, that you’re aligned with them and willing to show it. Yes, we know we have her support based on her statements, but political theater is important in a campaign. And if she stays low over every little thing, then the left wins.

      As for legal expenses, well, that’s why she started a legal defense fund.

  10. “You can’t put 50,000 NRA members in the same category as “some outside group.” If she wants a future in national politics, this is one group she should play to. The NRA convention is bigger than CPAC and all of the other “conservative” events.

    Canceling this gig was not brilliant.”

    “Invitation from an outside group” in this sense, means “invitation to an EVENT outside of the state not directly involving Alaska”.

    Her going to the NRA banquet might be good for a future national campaign but it has nothing to do with her job as Governor of Alaska. That is the job she was elected to do; remember we didn’t put her in office to begin a run for President or anything else.

    She is an ardent and proven supporter of gun rights, she has nothing to prove to anyone on that regard. Better that she stay in Alaska, whatever her reasons, and avoid stirring up unnecessary trouble.

    There will be more NRA conventions.

    Furthermore, you are falling into the false dichotomy that “conservative” and “liberal” labels have anything to do with gun rights. The NRA is not a wing of the Republican party last I checked, it is a single issue advocacy group with members of every political persuasion.

  11. How am I the one calling gun rights a GOP issue when you’re the one who referred to the NRA meeting as a “conservative” event? That’s why I used quotes. You made the assumption, not me.

  12. You’re right. Please forgive me for misreading “the NRA convention is bigger than Cpac and all of the other “conservative” events” as applying the “conservative” label to the NRA convention.

    The whole “only conservatives/GOP-ers/right-wingers support gun rights” idiocy is a pet peeve of mine so I undoubtedly see it where it isn’t being said.

  13. Totally bummed…

    Ted Nugent really doesn’t interest me much. But I would have liked seeing Sarah Palin.

    That said, I am not going to criticize her. I don’t know what or why she’s not coming. But I’m not going to knock her support of the 2nd Amendment or the NRA. She just tried appointing a former NRA executive as Attorney General. While the Democrats may have prevented that. Governor Palin didn’t shirk the criticisms in trying to appoint him.

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