HOUSTON — The National Rifle Association kicked off its annual convention Friday with a warning that its members are engaged in a ‘‘culture war’’ that stretches beyond gun rights, further ramping up emotions surrounding the gun control debate.
James Porter, the NRA’s first vice president, who will assume the organization’s presidency Monday, issued a full-throated challenge to President Obama in the wake of a major victory regarding gun control and called on members to dig in for a long fight that will stretch into the 2014 elections.
More than 70,000 NRA members are expected to attend the three-day convention amid the backdrop of the national debate over gun control and the defeat of a US Senate bill introduced after December’s mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.
Related:
Gun Legislation Jammed
Skipping the Globe Gun Show
Probably a good idea.
Porter’s remarks came in a short speech to about 300 people at a grass-roots organizing meeting and set the tone for a ‘‘Stand and Fight”-themed convention that is part gun trade show, political rally, and strategy meeting.
‘‘This is not a battle about gun rights,’’ Porter said, calling it ‘‘a culture war.’’
‘‘[You] here in this room are the fighters for freedom. We are the protectors,’’ said Porter, whose father was NRA president from 1959-1960.
Rob Heagy, a former parole officer from San Francisco, agreed with Porter’s description of a culture war.
‘‘It is a cultural fight on those 10 guarantees,’’ he said, referring to the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution. ‘‘Mr. Obama said he wasn’t going after our guns. As soon as the Connecticut thing happened, he came after our guns.’’
They tried, and failed.
That theme carried throughout the day and reached a peak in the afternoon political rally that was punctuated by fiery speeches from state and national conservative leaders....
Gun control advocates were determined to have a presence outside the convention hall. Across the street Friday, the No More Names vigil read the names of gun violence victims since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. Gun control advocates also planned a petition drive to support expanded background checks and a Saturday demonstration outside the convention hall.
Erica Lafferty, whose mother, Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung, was killed by the gunman, was outside the building and said she hoped to talk to as many NRA members as she could.
‘‘I am not against people owning guns. I am asking for safe and responsible gun ownership and gun laws. I don’t understand where the problem is with background checks,’’ Lafferty said.
Related: Sandy Hook Actors' Sour Grapes
I'm tired of crisis actors posing as real people in my newspaper.
Inside the convention hall, visitors strolled past acres of displays of rifles, pistols, swords, and hunting gear....
Debbie and Daniel Ferris of Gun Barrel City, Texas, also agreed with Porter’s assessment of a culture war.
‘‘It’s about fighting tyranny,’’ said Debbie Ferris, who has been an NRA member for five years. Her 35-year-old husband is a lifetime member.
That's right.
‘‘We don’t like to be pushed around,’’ Daniel Ferris said. ‘‘We are free Americans.’’
But polls also show that most Americans favor some expansion of background checks and gun control supporters promise to keep pressing the issue.
Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, has said he will reintroduce the bill to require criminal and mental health background checks for gun buyers at shows and online.
What part of no do you not understand?
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I was raised to hate the NRA, and there is a residue of betrayal now that I realize they are our defenders and protectors.
"NRA tells members never to surrender
That's how it starts, by disarming you. Makes it a lot harder to say no.
"Gun violence falls, but most homicides by firearm; US report comes amid intense national divide" by Jerry Markon | Washington Post, May 08, 2013
WASHINGTON — Gun violence has dropped sharply nationwide over the past two decades, but nearly three-quarters of all homicides are still committed with a firearm, the Justice Department said in a report released Tuesday.
The report, by the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, painted an encouraging picture of long-term trends at a time of divisive political debate over guns and legislation to regulate them. Firearms-related homicides declined 39 percent between 1993 and 2011, the report said, while nonfatal firearms crimes fell 69 percent during that period.
Yet the document also made clear that when people are killed, it is still most likely to be with a gun. In 2011 about 70 percent of all homicides were committed with a firearm, and the majority of those firearms were handguns.
The report, which echoes earlier findings of reductions in violent crime from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, comes amid an intense divide over guns, especially since December’s massacre of 20 children and six adults at a school in Newtown, Conn.
Newtown thrust gun control to the top of President Obama’s second-term agenda, and the White House pushed hard for a series of gun-control measures. But the effort unraveled under pressure from the gun rights lobby, and every major proposal was rejected in the Senate.
The biggest setback for the White House was the defeat of a compromise measure to expand background checks for firearms purchases. Gun-control proponents have since mobilized to revive the push for stricter gun laws, but gun rights groups might seize on one finding in Tuesday’s Justice Department report to argue against enhanced background checks.
Fewer than 1 percent of state prison inmates who possessed a gun when they committed their offense obtained the firearm at a gun show, the report said.
That's all?
Gun shows were central to the measure rejected in the Senate: It would have extended the background-check requirement to any sale at a gun show or advertised in print or online.
So it is as the "right" and blogs have said all along: this is all about limiting the arms of law-abiding Americans.
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Related: Sunday Globe Special: Gun Control Confusion
Ever notice my mixed message, mass media always confuses you more?
"Senate rejects firearms on more federal lands" by Alan Fram | Associated Press, May 09, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Senate rejected an effort Wednesday to expand the use of firearms on some of the nation’s most frequently visited federal lands, handing gun control advocates a modest success....
I wish they would take that and go shut up. I resent them taking advantage of the blanket I provide, and then criticizing the way I provide it.
The background check expansion has been the pillar of President Obama’s effort to restrict guns following December’s elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn.
Sorry, folks, but it was all a hoax.
Top Democrats and other supporters hope to win fresh support and stage a new vote on background checks, perhaps next month. Advocates hope that voting for Coburn’s proposal might let some senators show voters they support gun rights and give them more leeway to reverse themselves and vote for background checks next time....
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