Did you go to GRPC? Photos inside!

I spent much of the weekend at the Gun Rights Policy Conference in Ft. Mitchell, KY this weekend.

Sponsored by the Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee to Keep and Bear Arms, among others, this event brought together leaders from scores of grassroots organizations throughout the nation to hear a Who's Who of distinguished speakers.

The accommodations were very good. The convention center that hosted the event was huge, with wonderful pools, both indoors and outdoors. It even had a bit of "Hogwarts" flavor in both the decor and the numbering system (or lack thereof) for numbering rooms.

Here are some photos...

Photo #1. Alan Gottleib presents Miss America 1944, Venus Ramey, 82, with an award recognizing her contribution to the cause for using her gun to thwart a criminal act.


Photo #2. Registration was busy throughout the weekend as approximately 800 pre-registered attendees signed in. An additional 800+ walk-ins also came over the course of the weekend (many of those were Saturday afternoon for Ron Paul).


Photo #3. Congressman Jean Schmidt (R-OH) receives an award from Alan Gottlieb. She was a VERY impressive speaker.


Photos #4, 5, 6, 7. Presidential Candidate Ron Paul made an appearance for about a half hour or so.







And he received an award from Mr. Gottlieb:


And he gave a nice ten-minute speech which was well received by GRPC attendees, wildly approved by his die-hard supporters, and omitted any reference or re-statement of any of his recent observations like 9-11 was America's fault.



Mr. Paul's supporters were bordering on obnoxious to GRPC staff, demanding their place in a room to see Mr. Paul, even though they weren't GRPC participants. My friend Tom suggested that we just ask everyone to show their carry piece and those who are armed can see Dr. Paul, and those who aren't can wait outside the conference area.

Instead, GRPC people broke down part of the main room to allow additional room for the Paul supporters so nobody had to get hurt.

To their credit, some of the Paul people stuck around after Ron left to re-assemble the broken down tables.



Good size crowd (this was less than a third of the seated audience.



Last observation:

I was pleasantly surprised that Mr. Paul showed absolutely no reservations about wading directly into an audience chock full of people like me packing heat. Heck, many of the GRPC attendees were open-carrying.

I was taking photos and was within literally a half an arm's reach of Mr. Paul for probably five minutes each in front of him and behind him. The time I spent taking photos over his shoulder and generally following him around, I was right there with nobody between me and him.

Bet you wouldn't find Barack or Hillary doing the same.

Hope you enjoyed.

John

 

Bet you wouldn't find them doing it even with bodyguards and a disarmed crowd. No need to touch those icky commoners, now.

 

Could you carry concealed at the event?

 

Could we?

Uh, yes. Open, or concealed.

I carried OC all day Sunday until I got to the IL state line.

OC was a first for me. I have, until today, always CC'd.

John

 

very cool to know he was willing to walk into a political crowd of people with guns. i cant imagine any other canidate doing that.

 

Templar, were you wearing a cowboy hat? If so I a picture of you during the Ron Paul speech.
I spotted myself in the photo with the caption where you spoke of the GRPC finding the Paul supporters obnoxious. I am in the center top of the picture wearing the brown sport coat and you can make out the white shirt collar,I have my back slightly turned as I am walking to the left. I was actually looking for a place to sit down and eat my food, which can not be seen. Good thing as I had it piled high on those tiny glass plates. lol

The conference was great. There were quite a few armed folks and I felt quite safe. I was packing my old Kimber Custom Shop Stainless Covert .45 under that coat. When was the last time you attended a event attended by a Presidential candidate, and nobody made you walk through a metal detector? lol


Tim

 

Right off the OU guy's ear, eh?

No cowboy hats for me. I was the relatively young guy with a mostly tan shirt snapping photos... when RP was giving his speech, I was the guy who walked behind the security people and got half-way behind Paul speaking from the podium.

I recognized a few names I read on THR. And a few people I met mentioned their handles and the fact they post here, especially at the opencarry.org meet & greet Saturday night.

It's a shame there weren't a whole lot more THR members there.

John

 

I was there. I was usually sitting near the front, over near the sound board.

I need to talk to Oleg about getting some discrete THR lapel pins made.

 

No, actually the photo above that while Paul was speaking is where you can spot me.

 

I went. I'm even in one of your pics (#8), lol. Pic 6 is a great one of my friend getting his sign autographed by Paul. My pics aren't as detailed as yours. (With a little deduction using your pics and mine, you can figure out just who I am in #8).









My group as seen in the last pic were the ones originally enlisted as volunteers to begin moving chairs and tables when it became obvious that the tiny room they were going to stick Paul in, was, well... way too small. We also set them back up when it was over.

 

Do your research before you make accusations like that.

"I thought Mr. Paul captured it the other night exactly correctly. This war is dangerous to America because it's based, not on gender equality, as Mr. Giuliani suggested, or any other kind of freedom, but simply because of what we do in the Islamic World – because "we're over there," basically, as Mr. Paul said in the debate."

-- Michael Scheuer--Former CIA agent who served as the Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station

http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/05/19/former-head-of-cias-osama-unit-backs-up-rep-ron-paul/

 

Anyway, back on topic, did Tom Gresham show up?

 

I was there the whole time and did not see him if he did.

 

Gresham is a CCRKBA board member, but he was committed to a different event that weekend.. Normally he would have been there (CCRKBA and SAF hold their annual board meetings at the GRPC).