NRA members flood through the doors at the opening of the 2016 convention in Louisville. (Dave Workman)
By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
The second-highest attendance was posted at this year’s 145th annual National Rifle Association meetings and exhibits in Louisville, and in the wake of the huge gathering, newspaper editorials are bashing Republican Donald Trump for suggesting that Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton wants to abolish the Second Amendment.
According to an NRA spokesman, the official turnout was 80,452. In Houston a couple of years ago, NRA attracted 83,000, the spokesman noted. One other thing that TGM learned was that the exhibit hall was nearly twice as large as it was when the NRA gathered in the same building in 2008.
Both the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun went after Trump on the day after the convention closed. They are contending that Clinton has never said she would abolish the right to keep and bear arms.
But Clinton has said that she believes the high court “was wrong on the Second Amendment.” This came during remarks last fall, and an audio of that statement was revealed in October by the Washington Free Beacon and replayed to the audience at the Saturday members’ meeting.
Alan Gottlieb and Rhonda Ezell share a moment celebrating a court win in her case against the City of Chicago. (Dave Workman)
As tens of thousands of NRA members strolled through the exhibit hall, many people stopped by the Second Amendment Foundation’s exhibit to personally thank that organization and its founder, Alan M. Gottlieb, for the work they have done over the years. One of those was Rhonda Ezell, the chief plaintiff in SAF’s case against the City of Chicago’s prohibition on gun stores and ranges, Ezell v. City of Chicago.
Yet, while those attending the convention were energized, the mainstream press ramped up their attacks on the man who received NRA’s endorsement. Donald Trump came under fire almost immediately for contending that Clinton would go after gun rights.
But last year, Clinton told a private audience that she thinks “the Supreme Court was wrong on the Second Amendment.” That remark was caught on audio, and posted online by the Washington Free Beacon. The audio was even played against an image of Clinton during the NRA annual members’ meeting.
At an event in Maryland, Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, suggested that her mother would make Supreme Court appointments to turn that around. This was after Chelsea noted that Justice Antonin Scalia’s influence had prevented the court from being “consistent” on the gun issue.
Candidate Clinton has made no secret of her dislike of the so-called “gun lobby.” She has tilted farther left on guns than rival Bernie Sanders, the socialist Vermont senator who once suggested during a debate that her policies would drive the firearms industry out of business.
Her anti-gun rhetoric has apparently gotten so extreme that one Washington Post reader noted in a comment to that newspaper’s editorial, “(T)he anti-gun side will not get its way while the Second Amendment stands. And since 80% of all Americans favor gun control, or so we are told, that should be easy. Hillary should run on a platform of repealing the Second Amendment.”
One alarming thing about the Washington Post editorial is that it relied on information from Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun Everytown for Gun Safety lobbying organization to make a point about firearms-related deaths. The editorial did not specifically note, however, that a majority of those fatalities are suicides.
There appears little doubt that gun control versus gun rights is going to be at the center of this year’s presidential campaign. It’s an emotional issue sure to bring anti-gun voters to the polls, but it will also energize Second Amendment activists.
There is one more major gun rights event slated this year, the annual Gun Rights Policy Conference. Co-sponsored by the Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the GRPC will be held the weekend of Sept. 23-25 at the Double Tree by Hilton in Tampa, Fla. This is the 31st annual event, and it could attract major attendance.
