The National Rifle Association’s annual meeting is underway in Houston as I write this.  The national media is still claiming that 90% of Americans wanted the flawed Universal Background Check to pass last month.  Let’s talk about voting with your feet. 70,000 NRA members are expected to be in attendance before the three-day event is done, and according to reports, only about six anti-gun people showed up to protest.  I’m told that they stood on a sidewalk, reading aloud the names of murder victims.

I’m not sure what they thought that had to do with 70,000 Americans who arm themselves against the sort of criminals who commit murder, and fight for the right of other law-abiding citizens to also be able to defend themselves against murderers.  I doubt that the six protesters could have explained it coherently, themselves.

The mainstream media claims a majority of NRA members were in favor of the background checks.  Make that suggestion at the conference center in Houston this weekend, and you’ll hope you brought some hearing protection: the collective mocking laughter of that many people can get awfully loud.

Friend Dave Workman, often quoted here, has this to say: http://www.examiner.com/article/huge-nra-opener-houston-as-gun-classes-fill-washington .

1 COMMENT

  1. Mas’ report is accurate. I am on assignment here at the NRA gathering and have images of the “protest” across the street.

    NRA members are fired up, ready for whatever lies over the horizon.

    Lots of activity here, and these Texans really know how to spread the Welcome mat!

  2. Mas, they even had a piece on the local CBS TV chennel here in Missoula, MT.

    The gist of it was that older man, who portrayed himself as a “Gun Owner”, who had lost a family member, due to “Gun Violence”, tried to make the case that the so-Called Background Checks, could have prevented the death of his family member, and he and Media narratetor wondered around the area asking attendees at the NRA meeting “Why wouldn’t the NRA, and it’s members support something reasonable such a “Background Checks”, if it would save even “one life”?

    Of course, it was an obvious attempt to portray the NRA, and Gun Owners, as being callous zealots, who didn’t care who, or how many people died, from preventabe gun violence, so long as they could cling to their Constituton, Guns, and Bibles.

    So, looks like Obama and Cronies, have not given up on forcing their Dis-Armament Agenda on America, and we will still have to try to stop them from using the proposed HHA Regulations, from forcing medical Doctors to declare gun owning patients as being “mentally unfit to own firearms”, so the Government can come and seize all their currently legally owned weaponss, and lock the up too, most likely.

  3. Mas, fess up… are like the rest of us in that just want to bang our heads against the wall and scream until we’re hoarse when we hear about the actions of the antis? The sheer magnitude of their lies makes my head want to explode.

  5. I keep thinking about the call for more anti- gun laws. Then I look at the file folder full of “denied” back ground checks I’ve done. Did you know that there is a law against being dishonest on Form 4473 (the ATF/FBI Background check form)? Do you know that if you lie on that form, nothing will happen? When the ATF comes to do my Federal Firearms Licence compliance check, to be sure that I am following the law to the letter, they never once ask to see that file folder. Someone on this path has lost their way.

  6. From Workman’s article “, that while he took an oath to uphold the Constitution, ” by Obama.
    When is he going to start?

  8. I think NPR here in Missoula reported only two protestors. I get what they are doing, but do believe that responsible gun owners need to keep an honest and critical eye on the entire debate. Too much gloating and gun owners might win the battle but loose the war.

    Enhanced background checks might have been a reasonable decoy compromise that would have likely yielded some useful data showing a lack of effect on crime. However, now there is a regrouping of oppositional forces and if he gun press makes too big a deal about the victory, then many with no dog in the fight now will seize a nearby issue such as lobbying, or big money, or organizations over people an then join the gun control crowd out of their principles.

    It’s easy to strut around with 70,000 like minds, but ther are still 300,000,000 other minds out there.

  10. According to the left lunatic fringe, people who are against “sensible” gun control are also against our beloved Dear Leader. Therefore, those folks
    are pro-murder and even worse, simply racist!

    Stu: Some people don’t have to try very hard to be stupid. It comes to
    them naturally just like breathing and eating.

  11. The background check thing is nothing but an attempt to set up an air tight set of federally managed paper work, a de facto registry, so guns can some day be confiscated. Don’t like the second amendment, ok pal, there is a procedure for changing the constitution. Put up or shut up. Instead they are trying to rot away the bits of the constitution they don’t like.

    Should all typewriters and offset printers be registered, all preachers and priests, should anyone not a democrat go into a federal database? Only reason to register something is so that it can be taken.

    If the media is concerned about saving a life and stuff, ask them why they are at the NRA convention and not at the Kermit Gosnell trial.

  12. Obama vows to keep at gun control: ‘This is just the first round’

    By Michael O’Brien, Political Reporter, NBC News

    President Barack Obama vowed Thursday during a trip to Mexico to continue pushing for new, tighter gun control rules in the United States, saying his proposals’ recent defeat in Congress was “just the first round.”

    Speaking following a meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, whose country has been ravaged by gang violence supported in part by gun trafficking into Mexico, Obama vowed to return to the issue of gun control in the United States.

    Henry Romero / Henry Romero / Reuters

    President Barack Obama and Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto speak during a news conference after attending a bilateral meeting at the National Palace in Mexico City May 2, 2013.

    “The last time we had major gun legislation, it took 6, 7, 8 tries to get passed,” Obama said at a press conference following his meeting with the Mexican president. “Things happen somewhat slowly in Washington, but this is just the first round.”

    Advertise | AdChoices

    Democratic leaders in the Senate were forced to shelve a bipartisan proposal expanding background checks for firearms sold online and at gun shows when it failed to receive the requisite 60 votes to survive a filibuster threat. The measure’s Democratic proposal, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, has vowed to fight to bring that proposal back up for another vote.

    And in an article published Wednesday, the proposal’s Republican author, Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, suggested that politics were afoot in many GOP senators’ decision to oppose the package.

    “There were some on my side who did not want to be seen helping the president do something he wanted to get done, just because the president wanted to do it,” Toomey told local newspaper editors.

    Top Talkers: Is the public willing to give up some of their civil liberties to curb terrorism in the U.S.? And which civil liberties? A new CNN/ORC poll takes a look at the issue, and the Morning Joe panel discusses. Meanwhile, Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., discusses how his push to expand gun background checks was voted down in the Senate.

    Congress is away from Washington this week for a scheduled recess, but the issue of guns has followed members back to their states and their districts. Gun control advocates have aired ads targeting key senators for their votes in their respective states, and Democratic groups have trailed New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte throughout her state this week to put public pressure on the first-term senator for her vote during public town hall meetings.

    The president and his allies are relying on the fact that public opinion is largely on their side when it comes to the specific gun proposals being floated by the administration.

    “When you’ve got 90 percent of the American people supporting the initiatives that we put forward … I believe that eventually we’re going to get that done, and I’m going to keep on trying,” he said.

  13. The liberal gun grabbers here in Missoula, MT, who are legion, are already running TV spots, featuring an older, Moterly looking female, posing as representing the local gun owners, who chastizes Max Baucus for voting against the recent firearms registration, and other bills.

    She pleads for Baucus, now that he has finally announced he will take his FAT GOVERNMENT RETIREMENT, to “DO THE RIGHT THING”, and VOTE FOR THE NEXT ROUND OF OBAMA’S GUN CONTROL AGENDA.

    I did send him an e-mail, congratulating him for voting for the Constituion and Bill of Rights, against gun control, and urged him not to bend to the new pressue to go in to retirement, by leaving only a traitorous vote against his sworn oath of office, to further tarnish his legislative legacy with a last Benedict Arnold like memory, for all to judge him by.

    Hope other Montanan’s will contact him with a similar type message, to hopefully off set the TV barrage, tempting him to stab us in the back, one more time, on the way out the door?

  14. This is about tracking firearms rather than a background check. The goal is to first record serial numbers and weapons sold through form 4473. Obviously then this will be ineffective at preventing crime–the next step is that we should have all of these weapons in a searchable database to help fight crime. Once again, ineffective at affecting root cause–criminals. Thus, government needs even more power which is severely curtailing private ownership of guns but this time all of the needed information about who owns what is available. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

    True colors of the Senators interested in background checks were disclosed when Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) dropped out of the group that produced the Toomey Manchin bill. Coburn’s proposal was to allow citizens to access the NIC system to determine the legality of the buyer to possess the fireams. But, since individuals would not have to fill out 4473 like information like FFL dealers, no records would be available for government to record serial number and weapon id. This simply would not do as no paper trail would be created with no leverage for future restrictive laws. This is similar to the Left’s attempt to get rid of the Tiahart Amendment that prevents tracking information by BATF from being disclosed outside of an actual criminal investigation. Bloomberg and the Brady bunch were trying during the early 2000’s to link popular FFL sellers to guns used in crimes. Similarly, the ground was prepared for massive class action lawsuits using state and local money against firearms manufacturers. Both of these collateral attacks on the Second Amendment were stopped–one via the Tiahart Amendment and the other through the Lawful Commerce Act of 2005.

    The moral of this story is those seeking to ban guns never sleep and to preserve liberty, vigilance is required. Think of living politically in Cooper’s condition yellow, when legislation is proposed go to condition orange. Hopefully, we will never go to condition red politically.

  15. We need car control. Cars have too much capacity. No one needs a bullet proof 12 cylinder limousine to drive them to their Air Force One jet. We should limit cars to 4 cylinders and 25 mph. After all, more people are killed by cars than firearms. Driving is a privilege; not a civil right like self defense with firearms. A car at 25 mph has more energy than .50 Browning Machine Gun. Why is it you can drive a car after threatening peoples lives by driving drunk? Why do people who have used a car to kill others eventually end up on the highways again with their favorite weapon? Why are there no criminal records checks when you buy a car, since it is more of a threat to public safety than a firearm?

  16. Mighty strange. The Chicago Tribune, Sunday edition says that, “about 50 protesters showed up. One was dressed as the Grim Reaper. Story by Molly Hennessy-Fiske.
    Picture shows a couple of kids looking over the handguns. Oh my God! Of course they don’t say that this is the Crimson Trace booth and they are obviously playing with the lasers.

  17. VP Joe Biden Op Ed Brands the NRA A Terrorist Organization

    In a Sunday op-ed piece for the Houston Chronicle, Biden: Background checks are key to gun safety, Vice President Joe Biden once again puts the NRA in his sights. [Full editorial after the jump.] It’s a mean meme and the gun grabbers mean business. In his graduation speech at Ohio State University, the Prez warned the young’uns “Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works.” That would be the NRA. “They’ll warn that tyranny always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.” If the S H’s the F, the administration will SWAT NRA HQ in a New York [Mayor Bloomberg] minute. I bet Wayne’s warriors are ready for it, too. How great is that?

    In recent years, Americans have witnessed a series of senseless tragedies resulting from mass shootings. Perhaps the most shocking of all took place on Dec. 14, 2012, in Newtown, Conn., when 20 beautiful babies and six brave teachers and administrators were massacred at an elementary school.

    But every community, Houston included, suffers from the carnage of gun violence. In the aftermath of Newtown, President Barack Obama asked me to help him identify common-sense solutions to keep guns out of the wrong hands. As the National Rifle Association slogan goes, guns don’t kill people, people kill people. So why not close giant loopholes in our laws that allow criminals and other potentially dangerous individuals to arm themselves?

    In one of the many meetings I held as I prepared those recommendations, I met a young man named Colin Goddard who had survived the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech. To this day, Colin has several bullets in his body. “I’m not here because of what happened to me,” he explained. “I’m here because what happened to me keeps happening to other people. And we need to do something about it.”

    To Colin and to the victims and families affected by every senseless death caused by a gun in the hands of someone who shouldn’t have one, I say this: We will do something about it.

    We reached a consensus in this country back in 1993 when we enacted the Brady Bill that a background check is a reasonable requirement to impose on an individual who walks into a gun store to purchase a firearm. These checks take just a few minutes. All we are seeking to do now is to expand that requirement to people who shop for guns at other venues such as gun shows, through classified ads and over the Internet.

    Two U.S. senators with sterling NRA records, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and GOP Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, have written legislation that would do just that. We fell short on our first effort to pass Manchin-Toomey in the Senate, but we will not be deterred by one setback. We have an obligation to make sure that the voices of victims, not the voice of the NRA, ring the loudest in this debate.

    For too long, members of Congress have been afraid to vote against the wishes of the NRA, even when the vast majority of their constituents support what the NRA opposes. That fear has become such an article of faith that even in the face of evidence to the contrary, a number of senators voted against basic background checks, against a federal gun trafficking statute and against other common-sense measures because they feared a backlash.

    Today, those very senators are discovering that the political landscape really did change. They are learning that Newtown really did shock the conscience of the nation and that inaction will not be tolerated by Democrats, Republicans or independents.

    U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., for example, voted against the background check bill even after he wrote a letter to a mother of a gun violence victim professing his support for tougher screening. In the weeks since, he has seen his approval plummet so dramatically that he took to Facebook to describe his popularity as being “just below pond scum.” And Sen. Flake admitted something important: “I would assume that my poll numbers have indeed taken a southerly turn since my vote” against the Senate background check proposal, he wrote. “It was a popular amendment, and I voted against it.”

    On the other hand, red-state Democrats like U.S. Sens. Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana learned that when they stood up to vote in favor of background checks, their constituents stood firmly behind them. According to a recent poll, Louisiana voters say they are more inclined to support Sen. Landrieu in the aftermath of her vote. North Carolinians said the same of Sen. Hagan. This was not what conventional wisdom predicted a few weeks ago. But it is reality today.

    Taken together, these polling numbers have turned the traditional political calculus on its head. Whether senators are rewarded for bucking the NRA or punished for following its orders, the message is clear: If you don’t support gun safety, your voters won’t support you.

    In the end, I believe we will prevail. And those who wrote off gun safety legislation last month will come to realize that moment wasn’t the end at all. It was the turning point.

  18. re: Obama Mexico speech; This “study” that Obama and other control freaks keep citing that the majority of guns used in violence in Mexico are traced back to the U.S is factually incorrect. The majority of confiscated guns in Mexico are untraceable, the only ones that can be traced are the ones that made it across the border from the U.S, sometimes with the help of our beloved A.T.F. Since “back tracing” is fairly simple for the A.T.F to perform on U.S. sold guns, it would seem that majority that are untraceable came from some other country of origin.

  19. Just wanted to say again it was a pleasure and my honor to meet you there at the Houston Convention! It’s too bad more people didn’t realize you were there, though that many seeking your time may have been impossible to deal with…their loss I say! God Bless and be safe.

  20. Good to see you at the show, and I heard similar sentiments from most of the folks on the floor. I tried to take pics of ‘all’ the protesters, but there were too many media around to let me get a clean shot… and 20ish vs. 80+ thousand? I think we ‘win’ that vote with our feet!

  21. Some guns that end up in the hands of Mexican drug gangs do originate in America, and not just the ones handed over in fast and furious. There is a problem in Mexico with corrupt people in the military aiding, and often deserting to, the gangs. The guns they sell or take with them may come from the US, but not from a straw buy from Bob’s gun store in El Paso, but as completely legitimate importation of military arms. Belt fed machine guns, real M4’s, and hand grenades didn’t come from a border-state gun shop. However that can be prevented, harassing gun owners will do nothing.

    And hey Obama, don’t want guns going to Mexico, maybe the border should be secured. What a concept.