NRA Convention – Page 10 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Bad Signs for the 2015 NRA Convention in Nashville?

I was looking for the annual misogynistic media column this year (haven’t found it yet), and I came across a media story about the 2015 NRA annual meeting that is scheduled for Nashville.

The convention center has already booked future events with 150 groups, including some big names like the National Rifle Association, which will bring up to 40,000 people to Nashville in 2015.

Um. Nashville, please contact NRA organizers pronto. I doubt NRA has cited the “up to 40,000” number since there hasn’t been a convention that small since I started attending these things in 2004.

With the record setting crowds that have come to Louisville and St. Louis topping 60-70,000 people, it seems a little absurd that Nashville would see such a significant drop off being close to many of the same attendees as those other cities.

This is annoying because it seems to be said with a purpose of belittling our influence and interest as gun owners. The press can now report that Nashville is expecting NRA member interest to drop by more than 40% based on predicted convention numbers, and I haven’t seen any indication that’s the truth.

Things I’m Looking for at NRA Annual Meeting

Looking over the previous year’s posts, I’m always struck by the little things that stick out at the time of the NRA convention that otherwise get lost in the greater gun debate.

One of the common themes is that regardless of how much the media often tries to portray “the gun lobby” as some evil group of gun company fat cats, it’s not that at all. It’s people. It’s real gun owners like you and me. Even if NRA doesn’t always represent our exact views in every single issue debate in every legislature, it’s still an organization made up of pretty normal people who all have a voice and a role in the organization.

Randomly, here are a few things I’ll be looking for at this year’s annual meeting.

1) How many eligible voters received ballots this year versus last year. Eligible voters are those who have been members for 5 consecutive years or who are fully paid life members. Last year, 1,596,869 people met those standards. Given that the final date to join and receive a ballot was in January, this year could be very interesting. It will give us some clue as to how many people signed up for life during the early stages of the gun control push.

2) Whether foreign NRA members will be recognized during the quorum call at the member meeting. I know it’s random and rather minor, but it came up as a resolution last year by someone who actually joined while living in the UK and then eventually fled the country to live here where we actually respect his rights. However, it was a comment on the topic that was left by a reader that really struck me:

Iâ€™ve attended approximately fifteen NRA Annual Conventions over the past years including this year in Saint Louis. I was at the meeting when the resolution was presented and it made me feel, for the first time, that I was really a part of this great organization. I am a Benefactor Life Member living in Regina Saskatchewan, Canada and I am looking forward to Houston in 2013. A friend of mine from Regina was also in Saint Louis and he upgraded his membership from Patron to Benefactor while at the Convention. When we were in the NRA Store, we met an individual from Ontario, Canada who was working as an NRA Volunteer at the Convention.

That’s pretty awesome. Those are non-citizens helping do more for the community than some of our own folks here at home. I think that deserves a recognition in the quorum call.

3) Interesting non-gun products. Paul Erhardt laid out a pretty good explanation for why you aren’t seeing much development or new launches of guns at this year’s annual meeting.

Right now, because of the non-stop gun buying taking place most companies are focussed on meeting demand for existing products and have their shop floors running 24/7, leaving little room (make that no room) for production of a new product.

Sure, you’ll see some derivative products, like a new AR-style rifle or 1911, that don’t require changes in machinery or programming. A company making and selling the hell out of an AR can swiftly make changes to the gun’s features to create both a new product and, more importantly, a new price point…preferably one with a higher profit margin.

But the truly new products, the ones built from the ground up and not extensions of an existing product line, are likely to be absent from this year’s show.

Basically, we’re too busy buying everything they already make to warrant shifting resources to new launches. That makes sense. But, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t awesome stuff to see on the side aisles. That’s what I’ll be focusing on this year when I am on the floor.

4) Specifically in the non-gun category, innovative or decorative gun storage solutions. As I’ve noted on Pinterest several times, gun storage solutions are actually very popular pins on the heavily female social network. It’s not completely shocking since the initial users were heavily skewed toward the midwest, but it’s still amazing just how common such pins really are now that interest in the site is more diverse.

What other things did I miss? What little facts, debates, or products interest you this year?

Paranoia & Fear

I stumbled across a Facebook post gathering of Texas anti-gun activists who are concerned about the NRA annual meeting and exhibits taking place in Houston. As much as our opposition says that we’re the paranoid ones, their side has the woman speaking out who is convinced that the convention is full of people to fear who are “insane” and “nuts” simply for wanting to look at guns.

antigunfear

When challenged over why she would be fearful of law abiding NRA convention attendees, she spoke more of who she fears the most.

antigunfear2

I don’t know what’s worse here. On one hand there’s the paranoia that Sarah Palin or Ted Nugent is going to hurt her because she wants more gun control. On the other hand, there’s the overinflated sense of self-worth that comes with the assumption that Sarah Palin or Ted Nugent would even give enough of a damn about her existence to even want to hurt her.

The funny thing is that as much as she fears people on the right being around guns out of a sense that they’ll want to hurt others for not thinking like them, she’s the one who hopes that the FBI is keeping an eye on everyone who attends who might think differently than she does. So much for free thought or free association.

Getting Ready for Houston

We are getting ready to head to the NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits, which are in Houston this year. I was originally planning on driving, because I swore never again to fly the TSA skies, but looking at having to spend 4 days driving for 4 days in Houston didn’t thrill me either, and I didn’t really want to take that much time off work right now. So after some quick calculations that showed driving was actually more expensive, I decided to break down and get plane tickets.

We usually do some coverage of the convention, though we don’t walk the floor as much these days. But there’s still always one or two near things on the floor. If you’re headed to Houston, and have never been to an Annual Meeting, be sure to stop by the Miniature Arms Society’s booth. You can see my coverage from previous years, and I always make it a stop.

Dear NRA,

I will be very disappointed if I don’t see this work of art on display next week.

Love,

Bitter

P.S. I think I need to find a giant Pennsylvania outline and make buddies with the shotgunners at the gun club.

The Problem of Bias Ruining Your Story

When most gun owners think of bias in the press, they think of the mainstream media reporters who only sometimes bother to grudgingly show up to their assignments covering pro-gun rallies or events. There’s even a joke that’s pretty common in serious gun circles that if you go to a pro-Second Amendment event and wear a suit or otherwise look normal, there’s no way a reporter will talk to you. However, if you deck yourself out in camo and carry crazy-sounding signs, they’ll line up and then claim you’re a spokesman for the entire movement of gun owners.

But bias happens on our side, too. Case in point, last month’s “Letter from the Editor” in America’s First Freedom by Mark Chesnut assumes that nearly everyone with a press identification badge covering the NRA Annual Meeting and all of the activities associated with it are looking to demonize NRA members or miss out on what he considers the real story of the yearly NRA event.

While taking a break in the pressroom during the recent NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits in St. Louis, I overheard some members of the press lamenting the fact that they couldn’t find a good protest to cover.

One mentioned he had walked several blocks attempting to find a planned protest, but never found it. Another mentioned that she, too, had walked all the way around outside the convention center in hopes of running across protesters, but she, too, had come up empty-handed.

They looked demoralized. Their quest for the Holy Grail of the NRA meeting–rabid anti-gunners vehemently protesting the hated “gun lobby”–had ended in failure.

There’s just one problem with his premise about these people looking to promote the anti-gun agenda while ignoring the rest of the story of NRA’s weekend events. The woman he mentions? That was me, a life member of NRA and volunteer with both ILA and the Foundation. The guy? Thirdpower, an NRA endowment member and volunteer for the Illinois State Rifle Association, the NRA state association in his home state. In fact, with a quick peek at our press badges or, even better, a quick question as a reporter, he would have found out that his assumptions about what he overheard were actually the complete opposite of what the conversation was actually about.

How can we be sure that Mr. Chesnut was listening to us? Well, his description fits perfectly if you take out his misinterpretation of the full conversation. Also, the descriptions fit since both Thirdpower and I did retreat to the press office to sit down for a bit with some hot coffee (for me) to warm up after running around in the rain. We also know for a fact that the only mainstream media photographers assigned to cover the story of the protests left the premises after the anti-gun groups failed to show. We know this because we talked to them and even worked together for a time to try and find the protest.

So why would Mr. Chesnut assume we “looked demoralized” if we weren’t actually looking to promote anti-gun causes? I’d say it probably had something to do with the fact that running about a quarter mile around the outside of the convention center in the rain may have left us looking a little less than perky.

If he detected any disappointment, it was largely in jest. Though I’ve been covering protests at NRA conventions since Pittsburgh in 2004, so I do have an appreciation of the entertainment value of protests. Not to mention, it’s a little frustrating when anti-gun groups spend weeks promoting an event and then fail to show up due to a little rain when more than 70,000 NRA members managed to handle the drizzle. We wanted to get the real story to share with readers, that’s why we tried to find the protesters. When no anti-gun people showed up, we were happy to share it with readers. We did provide the real story when mainstream media relied on press releases and spokesmen.

So while Mr. Chesnut may have been trying to make a point about bias in mainstream coverage of the NRA event, his targets and facts were misplaced because of his own assumptions and biases. He only chose to hear half the story instead of stopping to talk to actual NRA members and supporters who were taking the time to report the full picture. A lesson in media coverage indeed.

Thirdpower’s story about his longer walk down to the Arch and back is here.

Sexy Sells – Booth Babes, Not So Much at NRA Annual Meeting

Leave it to me to dig into the ongoing controversy over booth babes at gun convention and shows. John Richardson provided a little photographic evidence that some booths got the “babe” concept very wrong. Too much make-up, over-the-top jewelry, absurdly out of place clothing, and enough skin to offend the family crowds that walked through the exhibit floor. Don’t even get me started on the look that qualifies more as a sneer than a smile.

She wasn’t the only one hired by exhibitors that was a complete miss on the concept of using attractive women to get more people to the booth. I saw one woman on Sunday who was wearing underwear over the top of her skin-tight leggings that she took a razor blade to so that they didn’t hide much. Yes, underwear as outerwear. Mix that with some very bad highlights, and that’s not what too many people call sexy. Certainly, none of the guys I was talking to in the area were looking at it with anything complimentary to say.

As a fairly feminist woman, I actually have very little objection to idea that sex sells – especially sexy women. But sexy is doesn’t mean trashy. The funny thing is that I don’t think there’s even a thin line between the two – it’s usually pretty damn clear. Night club and strip club wear isn’t exactly a fit for the NRA crowd. There were other booth babes in clothes that snuggly hugged the curves and even dipped to show quite a bit of cleavage who didn’t cross the line into trashy. They tied their look to the look of the booth and the gear they were trying to sell.

I would also say that even though NRA’s Annual Meeting is more family-focused than something like SHOT, women aren’t inherently turned off by the idea of selling sex. This week, the NYT Bestseller list for fiction has erotica with a BDSM focus written for women at the numbers 1, 2, and 4 spots. (On a side note, did John Grisham ever expect to come in behind a novel with a plot created for no other purpose than putting the characters in a position to have sex again?) Women are fine with it and even appear to be spending big money on it. It doesn’t offend the vast majority of us. But trashy? Yeah, not the same as sexy. It is a turn-off, and it will make women (and some men) walk in the other direction.

One of the best uses of sexy to sell was a booth I passed far too quickly to notice the brand, but their ads used pinup-style models. A well-done pinup look for an ad or a booth babe is pretty much a way to win the sex sells game at a venue like the NRA exhibit hall. It’s sexy, it harkens back to a time of patriotism, and it doesn’t have to push the boundaries of anyone in attendance in order to get attention.

I don’t know what it was about the exhibit hall this year, but the times I did notice booth babes, it tended to be the wrong reasons. Usually, it’s not that much of a problem at this event. I don’t quite know what happened if the company standards went down temporarily, if the selection of ladies to hire in St. Louis isn’t quite the same as other convention cities, or if generally this is the path some companies want to take in the future. I sincerely hope it isn’t the latter option.

Many Thanks for a Successful Annual Meeting

There are many people whose efforts go into making a successful Annual Meeting. This year was especially tough, I know, for the NRA Public Affairs office, who are very short staffed right now. It seemed everyone was just much busier this Annual Meeting than in previous ones. I also want to thank the bloggers who came out this year, and especially Old NFO, who was unbelievably kind enough to treat everyone to a dinner at Carmine’s Steakhouse in St. Louis.

The City of St. Louis deserves a lot of credit too, given that the convention area was much improved over the last time we were there. Businesses were open, and bustling, with a lot more eateries in the area than I remember. Taxis were easy to come by, unlike 2007 when we had to call one. I’d still rather see more police presence in the convention area, given that aggressive panhandlers were one problem that needs to be addressed, but overall our experience this time with St. Louis was quite good compared to last.

Next year Annual Meeting will be in Houston, a city I’ve been to many times, but never for a convention. In 2014, we’ll be in Indianapolis, then Nashville, and finally back to Louisville. They had a number of cities on the member survey this year. I picked Las Vegas. I’m hoping by then the reciprocity issues with Nevada are fixed.

Those Phantom Gun Sales

The anti-gun leaders keep trying to deny that more people are buying guns. Even when they finally concede that maybe there’s a smidgen of evidence from the NICS numbers, they claim that it’s just current gun owners buying more guns because we are all crazy and paranoid.

However, an interesting report came out of the NRA Board Meeting yesterday morning. And, no, it wasn’t just the news we broke on Twitter about the record-setting 73,740 NRA members attending the Annual Meeting & Exhibits. Kayne Robinson, Director of General Operations, told the crowd that they have seen a surge of training demands and had to really focus attention on being able to easily sell materials to the thousands of instructors across the country since the early days of the Obama guns sales surge. If you thought things were tapering off with Obama’s first term coming to a close, don’t be fooled.

So far in 2012, Kayne reported that the NRA sales are running about $265,000 above what they expected at this point in the year.

Yes, people are buying guns. New shooters are getting involved. People are taking the training classes to become safe and proficient shooters. Current shooters are coming out to support all of these new folks. Though the media likes to argue that NRA leaders don’t really have any solid foundation or following, about 1,500 grassroots supports came out to the National Friends of NRA Banquet to raise $450,000 for the NRA Foundation programs which put a particular focus on youth- and women-focused shooting programs. Across the country, local banquets are running 14% ahead of their expected fundraising goals. If most committees are like the one I have served on, there’s statistically only one way to raise more money – have more attendees.

While we were visiting with John Frazer, the Director of Research for ILA, in the NRA booth on the show floor, a gentleman who is active with his local VFW came up to ask about who he could talk to about funding a new shooting league. I gave him the information about how to find his local Friends group to put in a grant request since that’s the type of stuff I know our regional Friends committees love to support.

But remember, our opponents say we’re just making it up. There aren’t any new gun buyers seeking training. No shooters are really looking to become active. Current gun owners aren’t really any more involved with gun groups than they have been before. It’s funny how hard the anti-rights crowd has to work to ignore all of the mounting evidence that we are not only winning, but we plan to continue that winning streak far into the future as long as possible.

My Apologizes For the Lack Of Posting

Been on the road all day coming back from St. Louis. Just didn’t have the energy to wait through iPad blogging on the non-3G portions through mostly rural areas. Made it all the way back to Breezewood, Pennsylvania. Long day. Only a few hours from home, but we just can’t drive any more.

The NRA Meeting was an all time record, with 73,740 attendees.Â But remember, gun ownership is in decline, fewer people own guns than ever, and the NRA are just a shill for the industry with no real support among its members.

More to come tomorrow when we arrive back home sometime in the AM.