He’s the first speaker up today. Very little of his speech so far has been about gun rights. Not too surprising, given that it’s not his strongest issue. His message is more about freedom and smaller government.
UPDATE: Looks like Romney managed to mention Fast and Furious, and make a nod to getting rid of Holder. He also promises he will protect our Second Amendment rights.
UPDATE: One of his better speeches, actually, I have to say.
We’re staying at the same hotel we did in 2007, the last time NRA was in St. Louis for the Annual Meeting. Our first observation was that the hotel is much improved. When it was suddenly sold at the last minute, I was very concerned. However, the upgrades are very nice.
More importantly for purposes of this blog, I couldn’t help but notice far more people showing up to pre-register for the events that start tomorrow. I realize that NRA now schedules more on Thursday than they have in the past, but this was nuts to see people just heading back to the registration booth that’s open today. Tomorrow, and throughout the weekend, far more registration areas open, and it sounds like they will need them.
The hotels surrounding the convention center are bustling. Our hotel is across the street, and there has been a steady stream of cars pulling to drop off and check in, and many exhibitors are spotted in the hallways. The lobby of another hotel where we met with some staff members was a hub of activity as well.
While some St. Louis lawmakers may be protesting our appearance in this city, it’s clear that the staff at eateries and hotels are not with them on that. They have been nothing but welcoming and pleasant.
I still can’t believe that any prostest permit was honestly granted for the sidewalk outside of the convention center with so many expected to be inside. That area was already a bit crowded with a line today just for the Guns & Gold event – an Antique Roadshow-type show for guns. And I did get a kick out of NRA Secretary Jim Land helping out and checking out the guns. To me, that kind of illustrated that even though NRA might have professional staff, the vast majority came to NRA because they really love what’s important about the issue.
So, overall, signs point to a very busy weekend for NRA members in St. Louis. I’ll be tied up much of tomorrow morning with a meeting, presentation, then heading over to the Leadership Forum to cover the political news. At some point this weekend, I hope to cover some stuff from the floor, but mostly the people. Much like last year, I want to talk to real NRA members about the political scene.
I’ve been to every NRA Annual Meeting since 2004, save Houston in 2005 when I was starting a new job the week prior. At nearly every convention, businesses and staff typically welcome NRA members with open arms. Residents may not love the extra traffic, but they usually tolerate things for purposes of the millions of dollars NRA infuses into the local economy. (The exception may be Pittsburgh last year where, from what I was told, horrible is too kind for describing the traffic.)
There is one group that always seems to fret about the arrival of so many NRA members coming to town – bureaucrats. No Lawyers has a great illustration of that effect in St. Louis that appears to have just happened this morning. I guess that is the government worker’s version of a welcome sign.
UPDATE: According to a staffer here on the ground who saw the signs after they went up today, he says that not only are they new, but they are insanely huge. In other words, it leaves me wondering if, based on his description of how absurdly large some of these signs are, some bureaucrat seems to have been trying to send a message that gun owners aren’t welcome.
Local businesses are apparently quite excited to have the NRA in town this coming weekend in St. Louis.
That event, which drew 64,562 in 2007, stands as the convention center’s second-biggest ever. The expectation is for more gun enthusiasts this time, in big part because of presidential politics.
Republican candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich all plan to pump their Second Amendment pedigrees during a forum Friday. Other speakers include NRA favorites Oliver North and Glenn Beck.
I’m guessing Santorum won’t be there now, but perhaps we will break some more records this year. My concern about topping the record would be gas prices being so high. But our people often surprise me.
I have no idea what I’ll be doing at Annual Meeting this year. I haven’t really thought that far ahead, and head is only a few days. Too much has been going on here to think much about it.
“With so many of our members within a four-hour drive, St. Louis is a target-rich environment for us,” Arulanandam said. “We had a very positive experience in St. Louis five years ago.”
St. Louis won that chance by default. The NRA had planned to meet that year in Columbus, Ohio, but the Columbus City Council voted to ban assault-type weapons. That’s also why it won’t patronize the home of the Cubs, the team the Cardinals are hosting this weekend at Busch Stadium.
I had forgotten about this. St. Louis was a last minute change of plans. It would be impossible to have the convention somewhere that banned “assault weapons” since the exhibit hall will be full of them. I’d like to make it a goal, in that case, to host the NRA Annual Meeting in Chicago. I want to hear Mayor Rahm say nice things about us because he wants our money, and there’s not anything he can do about our guns. It would be glorious. I’ll also make it a goal, before I shuffle off the old mortal coil, to attend an NRA Annual Meeting in New York City, because we’ve fixed enough laws to make it viable.
According to the conversation in the Twitter-verse, some on the left have declared that there is an ongoing War on Women because of disagreement over political issues. Amazingly, a column run in a major newspaper mocking a gathering of women who have differing views on issues like the Second Amendment, hunting, and self defense can be run and it is not counted as part of the offensive in this so-called War on Women.
But on April 13 (yes, a Friday), [Ann] Romney, Karen Santorum and Callista Gingrich will join in “A Conversation Off The Campaign Trail” for the ladies of the high-powered National Rifle Association. …The three—minus Ron Paul’s wife Carol, whose status as an invitee is the subject of some disagreement—will headline a women’s leadership luncheon at the 2012 NRA convention in St. Louis. …
With the format and talking points of the luncheon still being worked out, we are left to speculate on what the wives might discuss.
As Mitt Romney marches closer to the nomination even as Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum refuse to quit, will the wives act as policy surrogates? Will they tackle such hot-button issues as women’s reproductive rights, the budget, health care and, of course, gun legislation? …
Will the wives keep it light and chatty, how gosh-darn fun and in touch with voters their guys are?
Will they joke about the rigors of campaigning, while offering helpful hints on no-wrinkle travel clothing, hurricane-proof hair products and staying slim while enduring endless rubber chicken banquets and ethno-regional food-fests? (Thank heavens for elegant culinary interludes such as the NRA luncheon at the Four Seasons Hotel).
As an added bonus—perhaps playing into the stereotype that women just love to shop, there will also be silent and live auctions.
Yes, shocking that a fundraiser for an organization will feature auctions.
There’s a lightly mocking tone when items are highlighted like the mink fur teddy bear made from damaged pelts and leftovers from recycled garments using eco-friendly materials. I’m sure the author also used the tone to get a good laugh at the folks from Paul Newman’s Camps for Children with Cancer who used the teddy bear to raise funds. Or maybe the bear used to support the San Diego Children’s Hospital got a hearty laugh out of the folks at the Washington Post. As long as they are mocking those who would fundraise with something as outrageous as a fur teddy bear, the WaPo needs to set their sights upon the Epilepsy Foundation, Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the Albany Symphony.
Amazing how the WaPo‘s Annie Groer picks and chooses from the auction catalog to make it sound as though women from the NRA are mindless bimbos mostly interested in non-serious topics like haircare and shopping. She chooses to ignore the other auction items such as the Sabre pepper spray training classes for the winner and 12 friends or the signed copy of SHOOT: Your Guide to Shooting and Competition by top competition shooter Julie Golob. Groer makes mention of the purses designed to hold a concealed firearm, but chooses to ignore that women might take this right to carry seriously with any number of the 15 handguns on the auction block such as the Smith and Wesson Model 638. And of course the WaPo would never take any woman seriously if she actually bid on the 5 day defensive pistol course at Gunsite.
Overall, the column isn’t anything close to the openly misogynistic Eric Heyl who ran anti-woman columns just before last year’s NRA convention. I am curious about why these columns always seem to appear right about this time every year. It’s amazing how the number of women participating in the NRA Annual Meeting makes the absolute worst of the mainstream media come out when they must confront the fact that women can be independent thinkers on issues like self defense without feeling the need to turn to the gossip pages and opinion columns to find out what they are “supposed” to think.
As a side note, I’d be all over the bid sheet for that mink teddy bear if I wasn’t going to be too busy speaking at the Grassroots Workshop at the same time as the women’s luncheon.
About 200 people marched on the NRA meeting in April, and I went to talk to a few of them about what inspired them to participate in a protest, what they believed was happening inside the convention, how they felt about concealed carry at such an event, and how they view the Second Amendment.
First, I want to thank reader Adam Z. for taking the pictures. Oh, and for bringing a buddy new to the issue along to Pittsburgh for their first NRA meeting. They both decided to go check the protest out with me, and this video would be missing several of the shots of signs & people if it had not been for Adam. Second, I apologize for the shaky images. Again, forgetting the tripod was not one of my better moments. But, for much of the video, it would not have mattered since I was conducting most of the interview while we were actually marching. During said march, I was dodging construction signs, potholes, and cars.
This is his segment from Washington Journal last week. The first questions may seem a little odd, but they are a bit of a bridge from the host’s previous topic about candidates and their personal lives.
He emphasizes the role of women in the organization and he discusses how NRA members vote on the Second Amendment so they don’t have to spend as much as in elections. He is accused by the second caller of buying Democratic votes instead of actually having the support of Democrats. Keene, even though he is associated with the right, is great at outlining how the Second Amendment spans party. I could outline everything, but I won’t. He flat out tells a gun owner who supports banning magazines that he’s wrong. I love it. Just listen for yourself.
At the 2A Blog Bash in Pittsburgh, participants had a chance to sit down with Keene at our breakfast with Tom King. I don’t just mean that he came by and shook hands with a friendly hello. He actually sat down with the group for quite a while to discuss a whole range of issues at NRA – technology, outreach, you name it. He’s a serious guy with a serious outlook on the issues from the political to the programming.
I blogged about the seemingly very bold thieves who tried to swipe some very large antlers from the NRA annual meeting while the vendors were cleaning up. It turns out that charges have been dropped.
The men’s attorney said the two are union carpenters who were working to dismantle dozens of booths at the convention. Freddy Rabner said at the end of the convention they saw the antlers lying on the floor as they were about to get crushed by a fork lift. …
Rabner said the men brought the antlers to the registration table in an effort to find the rightful owners. According to the carpenters, the antlers never left convention center property. …
The judge dismissed the case because of lack of evidence.
If all they have is security footage of them walking inside the convention center in plain view with the antlers, I think this is a good call. You can’t prove one way or the other what their intent was in that case. If they were getting them out of the way of potential damage, then they should be thanked.
I speak for a bit with Professor Glenn Reynolds about 3D printed magazines, among other things. For those who are interested in the project, you can explore the category here.
The one thing I hate about interviews is the sound of my own voice. I normally don’t think I have much of a Philly accent, but I can hear it stronger when I’m listening to myself.
Since I was representing PAGunRights.com this year at the NRA meeting, I decided to do a little research on attendees. I picked up my media credentials on Thursday, got permission to film without an escort, and didn’t step back into the press office again during the weekend. When I wasn’t interviewing NRA protesters, I was interviewing NRA members from Pennsylvania to conduct a bit of a survey on their civic engagement with elections, campaigns, and voting.
I also questioned people on whether their mayors were members of MAIG and whether their members of Congress were pro or anti-gun. The good news is that people overwhelmingly got those questions right. The only wrong MAIG response was from someone who thought his current mayor was a member, but his mayor is not part of Bloomberg’s coalition of anti-gun mayors. So that’s okay for him to be wrong since it’s good news. :) On the Congressman question, a couple of folks from Pittsburgh were mistaken by saying their guy is pro-gun. But, if they claim to be “from Pittsburgh,” but are really from any suburbs, then their actual Congressman may not be anti-gun.
Apologies for some shaky camera work. I should probably remember the tripod next time.
