‘Gun Appreciation Day’ a huge success, says SAF

By Dave Workman

Senior Editor

Gun Appreciation Day, a project supported by various conservative and gun rights organizations, was a “phenomenal success,” according to Alan Gottlieb, executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, one of the original sponsors.

He estimated that “more than a million citizens” attended gun rights rallies at state capitols across the country, and other locations. In addition, the estimate includes the hundreds of thousands who attended gun shows, visited gun shops or went to a shooting range or went hunting.

“These were patriotic, law-abiding people exercising their First Amendment rights to protect their Second Amendment rights,” Gottlieb stated.

Huge crowds gathered on capitol campuses from New England to Hawaii. In Olympia, Wash., the crowd size was estimated at 2,000-2,500, and many of those in attendance were visibly armed with either handguns or semiautomatic rifles carried peaceably, typically with muzzles down. Many others carried signs criticizing government gun controls or promoting Second Amendment freedoms.

“America’s gun owners stood united in the exercise of our Second Amendment rights, because the right to keep and bear arms belongs to all of us,” Gottlieb observed. “State lawmakers may not have been at these rallies, but I guarantee they heard our message and understand our resolve.”

Gottlieb said the Gun Appreciation Day rallies were designed to educate people that armed citizens can gather peaceably, and that their firearms are not responsible for violent crime.

“They are all united in the belief that their rights must not be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness nor should they be victims of political expediency,” Gottlieb said. “Gun Appreciation Day proved that armed citizens will not meekly submit to demagoguery that punishes innocent people for crimes they did not commit.”

In Albany, NY, Assemblyman Steven McLaughlin blasted the recently-passed gun control law banning so-called “assault weapons” an “abuse of power” by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. More than 2,000 gun owners turned out for that rally.

Depending upon whose estimates one believes, there were crowds ranging from the hundreds to the thousands at rallies in Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio and Montana.

Gun shows held over the weekend saw especially large crowds on Gun Appreciation Day, and several people interviewed in the waiting line, which stretched part of the way around the fairgrounds in Puyallup, Wash., said they attended because of the GAD event. Many came also to join the Washington Arms Collectors, which sponsors the monthly gun show.

The event came under blistering partisan criticism because it fell on Jan. 19, two days before President Barack Obama’s second inauguration and the celebration of Martin Luther King Day. But crowds at the gun shows and gun rights rallies attracted a diverse audience of gun owners.

“Firearms owners exercising their constitutionally-protected civil rights once again have shown they are the cornerstone of the community, representing diverse backgrounds and beliefs, with one exception,” said SAF’s Gottlieb. “The actions by lawmakers in New York and the threats from Capitol Hill and the White House have clearly rekindled gun rights activism in the United States.”

Gottlieb also said the turnout for Gun Appreciation Day events served as something of a warning to gun grabbing politicians.

“Gun owners who showed up at these rallies are prepared to also show up at public hearings and at the polls,” he observed. “They are out there in every neighborhood and every political precinct, and they will not go quietly into the night.”