NRA annual convention opens with "5 acres of guns, guides and gear"
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
04/17/2005
Group's membership
of about 4 million is
its highest ever
HOUSTON - The National Rifle Association opens its annual convention this weekend in Houston, a city whose baseball team was once named the Colt .45s and whose semipro team of police officers and firefighters is called the Gunners.
"Texas is a great state in terms of guns and hunting and the Second Amendment," said Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president. "It's the heartland of the country. They love us. They are on our side."
The convention is expected to attract 60,000 people interested in "5 acres of guns, guides and gear." There was even a Saturday session called "God, Guns and Rock 'n' Roll," featuring rock star Ted Nugent.
LaPierre and other NRA officials are expected to tout recent successes credited to the group, whose national membership is about 4 million - its highest ever.
The NRA has helped elect Republican lawmakers who support its efforts to limit lawsuits seeking damages against gun manufacturers and distributors, and to make sure a ban on assault weapons isn't reinstated.
Among those lawmakers is Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who was to be the convention's keynote speaker Saturday.
"He's been a huge supporter of the Second Amendment," LaPierre said. "The strength of the NRA is measured by the strength of the Second Amendment, and it's been in the best shape in decades."
While gun-control groups acknowledge the NRA's influence in government, those activists say the NRA is out of step with most Americans.
"Unfortunately it's because they have a ton of money and they do a very good job with their propaganda," said Eric Howard, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Howard said proposed legislation shielding gun manufacturers from liability takes away the rights of gun violence victims. He was also critical of the NRA's effort to block revival of the assault-weapons ban.
"I think these measures will backfire on the NRA because they are so extreme," he said.
Marsha McCartney, president of the Dallas chapter of the Million Mom March, a gun control group affiliated with the Brady Campaign, said the NRA's "extremist" views were exemplified by recent comments from NRA official Sandra S. Froman, who suggested the possibility that guns ought to be made available to teachers to prevent school shootings like the one in Minnesota last month.
LaPierre said Froman's comments were taken out of context, and that the NRA supports the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act that bans firearms from schools.
"The media twists a lot of the issues the NRA is involved with," he said. "The Second Amendment is the mainstream in the country. The NRA is the mainstream. We are the majority."
