GRPC 2015 Report: Part II Conference shifts to outreach, media, facts v. fiction and communications

by Dave Workman | Senior Editor

When a powerhouse like Mark Walters, host of Armed American Radio, tells a room-stretching GRPC crowd that he hates the media because it is “the single most dangerous entity we face in this country today,” it gets their attention, and they want to hear more.

And they did during the Gun Rights Policy Conference in Phoenix Sept. 25-27. Walters was joined on a panel discussing the Gun Rights Battle from a Media Perspective by Breitbart’s AWR Hawkins and Kevin Michalowski, editor of Concealed Carry.

Walters said the media controls the message by telling the public what they want people to know, and by not telling those things they do not want the public to know. It was a message that resonated with the audience of gun rights activists who have long been suspicious of media bias, especially on Second Amendment issues.

“The media is actively fighting every one of us in this room,” Walters warned.

He referred to “media jihadis” who want to destroy the gun rights movement, and he noted the value of being able to engage in a free debate about gun rights. It’s all about freedom of choice, and he cautioned against remaining ignorant about the subject.

“Ignorance left unattended,” he said, “breeds stupidity and stupidity is a necessary ingredient of the progressive agenda.”

He said it is time to take the media back. Write letters to the editor, support pro-gun programs, and never let the media get the last word. He said the debate ended in 1791, “and we won the damn thing.”

“We never let the enemies of freedom get the last word,” Walters said.

Michalowski told the audience that “the media is looking at us,” while pointing out that there was only one camera crew at the event because “they don’t really want to tell our story, but when something happens, they come out and they look at gunowners and they judge the entire group of gunowners by the activity of a few idiots.”

“Most of the media outlets in the country right now will go and look for the stupidest, most idiotic, biggest redneck in the world to put on TV,” he said.

Therefore, he advised, “be the best gunowner that you can possibly be.” Get training and understand the facts so that they can have good conversations with members of the press. He also told the crowd to follow the laws.

He suggested inviting the media to the local gun club. Firearms instructors should invite columnists and editorial directors at local television stations to the range for free training. The purpose is to show gunowners as normal people.

Michalowski acknowledged that many in the press do not care to listen to gunowners, but instead paint them with a broad brush. The narrative from the media is “the danger and damage” that firearms can do.

“We are out here to do something good,” he said. “If someone wants to take it, then we will fight for it.”

Hawkins, recipient of this year’s Journalist of the Year award, followed by observing that the political left “loves to use partial truths and outright lies” to push its agenda. Focusing on the background check push, he noted that he is “sick of” hearing about background checks, reminding the audience that high-profile shooters passed background checks.

“Over the last 15 years,” he observed, “it’s harder to find a public attacker who did not pass a background check.”

Hawkins contended that background checks are being pushed so the government can track firearms sales and know who has guns so that later this information can be used to create a registry they can later use “when the right person is in office.”

He lamented how the media approaches gun-related stories. Hawkins includes anti-gunners in his definition of the media, because the press allows people like Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords to “say whatever they want and the media won’t question it.”

“It is important for every gunowner to know,” Hawkins stressed, “that the left tries to use emotion to overpower your reasoning.”

Heller & McDonald

Attorney and author David Hardy delivered one of three one-man presentations on this year’s GRPC program. His discussion was about the Heller and McDonald Supreme Court rulings, and “how we got there.”

Hardy, who is also an historian, has been writing about the Second Amendment for some 40 years, recalled how a small group of academics began by researching the historical evidence regarding the Second Amendment as protective of an individual right, and how gradually that information began to see publication. He and others, including Joyce Malcolm, the late David Caplan, Bob Dowlutt and Steven Halbrook were successful in getting articles in smaller journals.

The “big break” came when Don B. Kates did an article for the Michigan Law Review, Hardy indicated. This article summarized all the data that had been reported in the smaller reviews.

The Second Amendment Foundation helped organize this effort, he said.

“We were all a bunch of youngsters trying to start a movement,” Hardy explained.

At the beginning, there were no overall plans, no organization, but instead a lot of individual efforts, he explained.

Another break came when the highly-respected Sanford Levinson published an article about “The Embarrassing Second Amendment.” That seems to have opened a floodgate of sorts, resulting in acknowledgements that there was evidence supporting the notion of the Second Amendment as an individual right.

All of this research ultimately led to Alan Gura, Robert Levy and Clark Neily pushing a Second Amendment case that landed before the Supreme Court as District of Columbia v. Dick Anthony Heller in 2008.

“Today we’re looking at the fruit of all this work that has gone on for about 40 years,” Hardy observed.     He never would have imagined even 15 years ago that the discussion today would revolve around where the nation might be going with the Second Amendment in court.

Reversing School Disarmament

The second one-man presentation that immediately followed Hardy’s discussion, was about an effort in Ohio to arm school officials in an attempt to prevent the kinds of tragedies that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary.

Jim Irvine, president of the Buckeye Firearms Foundation and a veteran Ohio gun rights activist, explained his project, dubbed “Faster Saves Lives.”

“It’s our teachers, principals, secretaries and coaches, and even lunch ladies, carrying guns in our schools to protect our kids from bad people,” Irvine told the audience.”

He recalled that after Sandy Hook, people began taking another look at the situation. He recalled that after the Newtown attack, the Buckeye group announced a class for 24 educators on the use of firearms. The program was organized with the involvement of veteran instructor and retired lawman John Benner, president of the Tactical Defense Institute.

Irvine noted that the announcement was panned by people suggesting that nobody in education would get involved. But within several days, he said, more than 1,000 people had inquired about the training. He said going through the applications “changed my life.”

He described the training course, including shooting and how to be “hunters and ambushers.” The course also involves how to deal with an active shooter and also involves learning emergency medical/first aid treatment.

The three-day course has been a learning experience for everyone involved, including some law enforcement professionals. As a result, the training continually improves.

Most states, he noted, have laws that prevent people from bringing firearms on school campuses, but there are exceptions.

He said the best strategy is to approach school administrators about first aid and medical supplies and training, and work up from there. Remind those officials that one cannot administer aid while someone continues shooting at them.

Irvine noted that there are probably a couple of educators in every building who already own guns, and who may instinctively move toward the scene of the fight. The “Faster Saves Lives” approach gives them the “tools and the skills to win that fight when they get there.”

Urban Initiative

One of the most significant presentations of the entire conference was about a new effort to expand the gun rights movement into urban communities.

Introduced by SAF President Joseph Tartaro, the Urban Initiative is aimed at tapping into urban populations and minority communities. He said recent polling suggests that there is a strong pro-gun sentiment among African-Americans that is slightly smaller but significant in the Latino community.

The problem that needs to be overcome is simple, and Tartaro explained it by pointing around the room. Minorities, he noted, are not very visible at gun rights conferences or conventions. He said the gun community is “predominantly white and predominantly Republican.”

To counter this, the Urban Initiative will promote firearms rights, and utilize this growing interest in responsible gun ownership. Those are the people who can become community leaders on gun rights and Tartaro noted that “inner city politicians will listen to their constituents,” and such meetings and conversations can “pave the way” for more interaction.

The first startup meeting was scheduled for Oct. 17 in Cleveland, OH, Tartaro noted, adding that the strategic goal of the Urban Initiative is to establish and expand a long-term relationship with people in the inner cities.

Tartaro’s words were underscored by Rashad Gray, co-director of the Ohio Chapter of the National African-American Gunowners Association. He is a veteran and firearms instructor, and introduced himself as representing “a demographic that is necessary for the future of the Second Amendment Foundation and its legacy to protect the Second Amendment and all rights for all Americans.”

He learned firearms safety and responsibility from an uncle at an early age, and most importantly, learned that the Constitution “covers us all.”

“The Second Amendment covers all citizens, regardless of race,” he observed.

Noting that more than 80% of the country’s population resides in urban centers and cores, Gray said that there are lots of gunowners in the black community, and that many people of all races are gunowners. However, they typically are not very vocal about it.

Gray received considerable applause when he told the audience what his uncle told him: “Being a black man and being a gun owner, it’s your birthright.”

“We need all the help we can get,” he said. “We’re not only going to educate people, but we’re going to empower them.”

Facts v. Falsehoods

Dr. John Lott, author and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, was the third one-man act on the program, leading off the conversation after being presented with the Scholar of the Year award from the Second Amendment Foundation.

Referring briefly to the Urban Initiative, he noted that the groups which benefit the most from gun ownership are those who live in areas where there is high crime. That’s people living in the inner cities. They are most likely to be the victims of violent crime.

An overwhelming number of murders occur in a small number of the nation’s counties. He noted that some polls have shown that poor blacks living in those areas are coming to value the right to own a gun.

But gun control laws that make it expensive to obtain gun permits cause the poor to suffer the most because of their low income status. He believes these gun laws are “consciously are set up in order to try to disarm those very people who benefit the most.”

In Maryland, for example, it costs about $300 for people to go through the process of legally obtaining a gun. For poor people living in Baltimore, that is a financial roadblock, he suggested.

Lott asserted that Democrats have consistently voted against exempting low-income citizens from excessive gun permit fees. This, he said, “changes the mix” of people who get permits, thus preventing people who may need a firearm most from getting one. Such laws victimize the most vulnerable people in our society, he alleged.

Lott then turned his attention to Michael Bloomberg. Support for gun control peaked in the late 1990s, he recalled, and today more people oppose gun control than support it. He believes the main reason for the change can be found in polls about gun ownership making people safer or homes more risky.

There has been a massive change in public sentiment on gun ownership, he said. He suspects that Bloomberg has seen those polls as well, and is investing massive amounts of money in research. He predicted a “tidal wave” of such studies in 2016, which will get very little scrutiny from the media.

Lott asserted that much of the research now being reported has been “poorly done,” and suggested that the main purpose is to plant the notion that guns are bad.

He noted that one group that has consistently supported private gun ownership is the police. This has been borne out by surveys conducted by Police.One.

Lott said data has shown that the states that had the biggest increases in gun ownership had the biggest relative drops in police deaths. He openly wonders how people who do opposing research “played around” with data to get the results they wanted.

Obama’s bad medicine

There was, indeed, a doctor in the house at GRPC. Four of them, in fact, and they provided an insider’s look at the problem with mixing medicine with gun control.

Dr. Tim Wheeler, founder of the Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership (DRGO), led the panel, thanked Lott for “trying to counter the flood of junk research” that has been produced in recent years.

He introduced Dr. Arthur Przebinda, the social media editor for DRGO.us. Introduced to shooting by an uncle, he described himself as “a student of the gun.” He wants to put the organization “into the consciousness” of the public and policy makers.

Noting that the fight will never be over, he said that the first task is to win the argument, and then win the election. He is working to advance the normalization of firearms, and to get DRGO working with other groups. This might include providing speakers or information.

He was followed by Dr. Robert Young, a psychiatrist and Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is also a professor and practices in Rochester, NY.

Young told the audience that he grew up in Missouri and got his first rifle as a teen. But he moved to New York, calling it “a good place to practice psychiatry and you can take that any way you want.” The audience erupted with laughter.

He acknowledged that many mass killers have some sort of mental problem. He said about 50% of Americans will, sometime in their lives, have some form of diagnosed mental problem and about 25% at any given time have a diagnosable mental illness.

People with mental illness commit violent acts at a much lower rate than most people, he added. He said about 5% of violent crime is committed by people with mental illness, and another 5% are committed by people who suffer from substance abuse.

“I can’t predict violence very well,” he said. “No one can.”

He said one of the big issues in background checks and mental illness is adjudication. This follows an individual for the rest of their lives.

Dr. Young said that if background checks are going to be used, they must be based on complete information. He compared the problem to winding up on a “no fly” list. There does not appear to be a way to get off of such a list, he indicated.

Wrapping up the discussion was Dr. John Edeen, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon and DRGO membership director. He told the audience that most hospitals are gun-free zones, and as a result, they are soft targets. He has launched efforts to remove the “gun-free” designation from hospitals.

Designation of an area as a gun-free zone makes it more vulnerable to attack, and that applies also to schools and big box stores. Attacks on hospitals, he said, is demoralizing to a community, and they are certain to produce multiple casualties.

He warned about the potential for terrorist attacks on hospitals, noting that security at hospitals is typically inadequate.

2A ‘Outliers’

There is more to the Second Amendment than firearms and white males. There are “outliers” protected by the Second Amendment, including knives and suppressors, and a considerable bloc of women gunowners.

Carrie Lightfoot, owner of The Well-Armed Woman, told the audience that women are “coming to gun ownership in droves.” She said this is significant, and she advised veteran gunowners to “stop talking about women and start talking with women.”

She noted that when women go shooting, typically the entire family goes shooting.

Lightfoot said the way gun control groups cultivate women is to suggest that they cannot take care of themselves, “but that’s false.” She said this tactic perpetuates the notion of victimhood among women.

She said to engage women in the Second Amendment conversation, because “women can save and protect our rights.”

“When women are enthusiastic and passionate about something, things happen,” she said.

She said the people in the middle are the ones who must be reached. Talking to anti-gunners, Lightfoot suggested, is like “talking to a brick wall.”

There are now 235 chapters of The Well-Armed Woman in all 50 states. There has not been any negative publicity, she said.

Todd Rathner, chairman of the NFA Freedom Alliance and a member of the NRA Board of Directors, said NFA (National Firearms Act) gunowners are “the neglected child of the gun rights movement.” He said NFA gunowners have never had a full-time lobbying organization to speak for them.

The one thing that brought NFA owners into activism has been the exploding sales of suppressors, Rathner explained.

The National Firearms Act was passed in 1934, as a tax on machine guns and silencers. It was a reaction to the prohibition era and it was apparently designed to reduce ownership. In 1986 it was expanded with the infamous Hughes amendment to prohibit transfers of new machine guns. All it did was drive up the prices, and it has solved nothing.

He started the organization in October 2014, and since then the group has passed four pieces of legislation. Rathner called the NFA “one of the most poorly-crafted pieces of legislation on the books.” He said the organization has developed a strategy for eventually repealing the NFA altogether.

“The NFA should be ripped out root and branch, and thrown in the trash,” he said.

Doug Ritter, founder and chairman of Knife Rights, the knife lobby, told the audience that “all knives matter.” He called the battle over knife rights “the second front in defense of the Second Amendment,” and reminded the audience that the amendment refers to a right to bear arms, not just firearms.

Knives are also arms, and they are used every day by Americans all over the map. Efforts to get rid of cumbersome, absurd anti-knife laws are getting lots of attention “and it’s all positive,” he said. Bipartisan support in even urban centers is gaining, and even liberal Democrats are realizing that their constituents are being jailed over “stupid, irrational” laws.

His group has passed five pro-knife bills in four states, Ritter noted.

He also blasted proposed legislation to ban ivory because that’s a material used frequently in knife handles. More than a dozen ivory ban bills have been defeated at the state level, with the help of the NRA.

“We are all in this together,” Ritter stressed.

Using the media

The next panel discussed using the media to advance gun rights, and it followed up on earlier advice with tips on how to work with and cultivate the press.

Don Irvine, chairman of Accuracy in Media, acknowledged that “most of us in this room do not consider the media our friends when it comes to gun rights.” He encouraged activists to “arm yourself with the facts” whenever preparing to contact anyone in the press, because reporters “tend to be very ignorant of the facts.”

He also told the crowd to utilize social media, which has become an important tool with which activists can amplify their voices “many times.”

Charles Heller, host of Liberty Watch Radio, said activists need to be passionate, but careful about expressing themselves to the media. This includes the use of language.

When preparing press releases, he counseled the use of attention-grabbing headlines, and getting all the information on a single page. Make sure to use short sentences, even in quotes, because “they will edit you down to one sentence and that’s all you’re going to get.

One message to the media that should be repeated, Heller said, is innocent people should never be penalized for the deeds of the guilty.

John Richardson, the successful blogger at No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money, elaborated on the use of blogs and local podcasts. Following the Heller ruling of 2008, he said it became something of a personal mission to report on such stories.

Gun rights activists can learn to argue their positions more effectively with a little effort, and that’s how they can educate and inform people about firearms issues.

He reminded the audience that bloggers connected ATF whistleblowers with members of Congress to break open the Fast and Furious scandal almost five years ago, and hooked them up with investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, working for CBS at the time. She won an Emmy for her reporting.

Richardson said “we are in a cultural war against a well-funded lobby,” so every means of activism helps.

Herb Stupp, an independent journalist, acknowledged that dealing with the anti-gun media can be “a daunting task” when the conversation is typically driven by emotion. He said most of the time, discussions on gun issues in New York “don’t even acknowledge our position.”

Stupp said some reporters are lazy and some are trying to do a job but with little time and resources. Newspapers have cut staff positions, leaving the work to be done by fewer reporters. They do not have time to focus on facts, so it is up to activists to provide those facts, and do it in a way that encourages communication.

“Use honey, not vinegar,” he said, especially if an error has occurred. In such instances, go back to the reporter or to an editor and develop a better rapport.

Lastly, Stupp suggested inviting the press to a range event. Send a letter or an e-mail and follow up with a phone call.

Cheryl Todd, host of Gun Talk Arizona on KKNT radio, discussed podcasts and how to reach people in the middle. She said those are the people “who haven’t decided whose side they are on.”

The most important task is to educate people in the middle.

“Our freedoms are only one generation away from extinction,” Todd stressed.

TGM Senior Editor Dave Workman reminded activists to stay on message whenever talking to reporters, and stay away from conspiracy theories. Be brief, use good “sound bite” quotes, don’t make things up and always have facts to back up what you say, and provide references to these facts so reporters can quickly check them for verification.

Language oddities

Author Alan Korwin criticized the news media for refusing to report about gun ownership. He used a strategy to show the audience why dealing with the press can be tricky by asking them if they were “pro-gun.” When the crowd responded enthusiastically, he said that being “pro-gun” is a bad idea.

Better to be “pro-rights,” because that makes the other side “anti-rights.” He said gun control is a false flag.

He also suggested changing the semantics. He noted that “assault” is a kind of behavior, “not a type of hardware.” Instead of gun control, “we want to talk about crime control,” he counseled.

Korwin, who has authored several books, contended that today’s journalists “are not reporters, they’re propagandists for the dark side.”

Author and film producer J. Neil Schulman asserted that Hollywood hates guns, but uses them in entertainment. He quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Concord Hymn,” explaining how the Minutemen fought British troops in April 1775 because the Redcoats had marched on Lexington and Concord to seize weapons and powder belonging to the militia.

Schulman suggested that the Declaration of Independence explains how the people have a right to oppose the government and resist.

Next generation outreach

One of the final conference panels addressed outreach to the next generation of shooters and gunowners. SAF Director of Outreach and Development Andrew Gottlieb said social media can be shaped, and used as the vehicle to get the message out about gun rights.

The next generation is “the one we have to capture,” he explained, because in order for the movement to continue, “we need younger people.”

His advice is to get active on social media, reach out to younger people and get them interested in the shooting sports and Second Amendment activism. He challenged the audience to sign up on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites.

Bryan Hartong, president of Rapid Response Television, told activists to hit the media “between the eyes” with their message. Rapid Response began about three years ago, and they work to engage new people who don’t attend gun rights conferences and other gun-related activities.

To accomplish this, they use traditional techniques to get the public’s attention, and then ask them to participate. It may be to just go on-line and sign a petition, or join a group, or perhaps to shut down the phones on Capitol Hill.

He learned that television is not used as aggressively by the pro-gun side as it is by the anti-gun lobby. He was told by a major provider that they would not run a pro-gun advertisement on the grounds that it is too controversial. However, the same provider ran an anti-gun advertisement, so he went to battle with lawyers.

Phil Watson, SAF Special Projects director, talked about Mayors Against Illegal Guns and explained that a big part of his job is to get grassroots involved. He put together a project called “Meet the Mayors,” which revealed that several mayors were criminals who have actually been convicted of felonies.

He referred the audience to a book called Trust Me, I’m Lying. It provides advice to bloggers.

He said a lot of the outreach he does is on-line, and they are all over the world. He said SAF has “done great work” all over the place, and the Internet is really the only way to communicate with people in other countries.

The gun movement is battling Bloomberg, battling the cities and battling “against ourselves.”

The way to fight that is to turn opposition talking points around on them.

For example, the line “if it saves one life,” can be used to hammer the other side. If it saves one life, end gun-free zones now, or adopt national concealed carry now, he suggested.

His final advice: “Quit listening to groups that haven’t done anything…to preserve your rights.”

Building state coalitions

The importance of building state coalitions is paramount and a two-member panel representing both coasts drove home that point.

Tom Bolioli with Commonwealth Second Amendment in Massachusetts, a state he calls a “target rich environment” for litigation. He advised against trying to create a new state organization and instead contact an existing group and see if they can be directed to be involved in our cause.

Setting up a new organization will drain resources in most cases, and it requires a lot of work.

“Sell the concept of what you’re trying to do to the people whose support you most need,” he advised.

His advice is to find a niche and work within it.

Gene Hoffman, chairman of the CalGuns Foundation, recalled that following the Heller ruling of 2008, a lot of gun rights organizations had to change. Prior to the Heller decision, he said, many groups were often “far more about the shooting sports and maybe local range issues,” but they were not activist groups. That has taken time to change, and it involved changing the mindset of those groups.

Hoffman said his organization found success by leading from the front. Develop backup strategies, and work with other groups. He pointed to the lawsuit against the gun tax in Seattle that involves SAF, NRA and NSSF. This shows that such groups can work together and bring the fight to the other side.

He also noted that people have to carefully pick the groups they support, and his strategy is to see what an organization has accomplished and then contribute money. He cautioned against sending money to any group that comes begging for finances in order to possibly do something.

“See results first,” he suggested.

The final panel of the conference tackled the subject of gunowners and the 2016 elections. Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, warned the audience that “the election will be here before you know it.”

Then he quipped, “We all owe Hillary Clinton a thank-you. Her anti-gun record and rhetoric will guarantee a great turnout of gunowners for the 2016 election.”

He predicted that Democrats will make gun control an important part of their campaign, and that the debate could be pretty hot because it is an “extremely partisan” issue. He said Clinton has already decided “to double down” on Barack Obama’s gun control efforts.

The elections are important because of federal judicial appointments, which he lamented “always fly below the radar.” But he cautioned activists that anti-gunners “would love to slam the courthouse doors in our face.”

In recent years, gun rights lawsuits have been pretty successful, with the Heller and McDonald rulings, followed by court decisions that forced Washington, DC, to adopt a concealed carry law, as well as the Illinois Legislature being forced to pass concealed carry, including in Chicago.

If Clinton is elected president, he said, federal court nominations will be tough on gun rights. He could only think of two federal judges appointed by Democrats that have not been bad news to gun rights.

He said the key to Senate control next year could narrow down to a couple of states, and if the Democrats sweep through the presidential election and capture the Senate, that will be bad news. The president nominates judges and the Senate confirms, and if the Democrats control the Senate, those confirmations will be virtually assured.

Gottlieb listed the battleground states to include North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois, New Hampshire, Ohio and Wisconsin. He also said Democrats must hold shaky Senate seats in Colorado and Nevada.

On the whole, as Gottlieb explained things, there is plenty of good news for gunowners, but that will apply only so long as they do not become complacent.

“For all of us,” he said, “the 2016 election starts today. We must all fight to win.”

He was followed by the final speaker for 2015, Jeff Knox from the Firearms Coalition. He stressed the concept of the “gun voter.”

He said the task is to elect people who will do what gun owners want and need for them to do. Lobbying and political action on the election front are both critical to the long term survival of the Second Amendment.

He noted that Gottlieb and the NRA and his own group “are not in this business to drag it out and make money. We’re in it to preserve Second Amendment rights.”

Knox reminded the audience that there was a presidential candidate in the room during the conference – Gov. Jim Gilmore – who was surrounded by gun owners who were armed, and for the former presidential candidate, it was the safest room in the country.

He pointed activists to websites operated by gun rights organizations that have lots of information about politics. He also recommended GunVoter.org, where a lot of information will be centralized and is user-driven. The objective is for activists to bring information to that site, share their knowledge.

Knox encouraged people to support legislation that would delete the term “sporting purposes” from the 1968 Gun Control Act.

He also firmly supports national reciprocity, but acknowledged some division in the House on that subject. But when it comes to deleting the “sporting purpose” language, he believes that is a clear issue, and activists need to identify

Knox finished his remarks by recalling stories about how his great-grandmother once defended her siblings with a gun, and about how his grandmother and aunt survived an attack by a man armed with a knife when his grandmother drew a gun and forced him to back off. He recounted how his two sisters, on two separate occasions, defended themselves with guns.

He said guns save lives, and they are what separate the good guys from the bad guys.

“Let’s never forget that if it saves just one life,” Knox observed, “the life it saves may be yours.”

Knox closed by telling the audience to vote, and that every vote matters, and to urge members of Congress to vote on important gun rights bills.

Next year’s conference will be held in Tampa, Florida. Watch future editions of TGM for dates and details.