Category: NRA Convention

Looks like there will be a new rifle exhibit opening at the Fort Pitt Museum during NRA Annual Meeting:

In addition to about a dozen rifles, the museum will showcase gear essential to the true rifleman. Powder horns — cow horns used to carry gunpowder — make an appearance, including an 18th century example engraved with patriotic sayings: “LIBERTY OR DEATH,” “KILL OR be KILLD.”

Pretty clearly Coalition to Stop Gun Violence would have serious issues with Fort Pitt Museum celebrating these dangerous militia insurrectionists.

Dave Kopel talks about the upcoming Firearms Law seminar. Both Bitter and I will be attending this year. If you would like to attend, you don’t have to be a lawyer, but if you are a lawyer, CLE credit is available. It does cost money, but if you’re interested in 2A legal topics, this is the place to find the experts. If you’re interested in attending, I’ve been running an ad on the side bar to support the Firearms Law Seminar. If you click in it, it’ll take you to more information.

Just in the interest of transparency, while NRA is not paying me for the ad, they are letting me into the seminar gratis.

It’s long been my policy not to take ads for commercial purposes, but I have occasionally advertised for not-for-profit causes I support at no cost, and such is the case here.

Every year the fine folks in NRA’s Office of General Counsel and the Firearms Law Seminar Task Force, put on the National Firearms Law Seminar. I was fortunate to be able to attend last year’s seminar, and I highly recommend it to anyone deeply interested in firearms law, or to anyone who’s a Lawyer who are looking for CLE credits. Where else can you go hear Dave Hardy talk about Carthaginian War Elephants, after all?

If you plan on going to Annual Meeting this year in Pittsburgh, and if you’re really interested in Second Amendment law, the seminar draws the top experts in the field. I would recommend it.

UPDATE: I was informed that law students get in for free this year, and you can do registrations in sections, like if you wanted to hear Prof. Glenn Reynolds speak, you can just buy tickets for the lunch where he’s speaking. See here for details.

I ran into some folks from the Miniature Arms Society at their booth in Phoenix, on the show floor, and again in Charlotte. I meant to blog about this last year, but just never got around to it. They say they will be in Pittsburgh, and if they are, I highly encourage stopping by. Hell, coming to Pittsburgh just to see their craftwork is worth the trip, I think. The scale version of the guns in their booth is, quite simply, amazing.

These folks basically produce scale versions of firearms. The are so well done, I had to start using something for reference, because just looking at pictures, you can’t tell they are scale. Here’s one of a lever action gun, that was probably only about a foot long.

At the booth in Phoenix I talked to a gentleman by the name of David Kucer, who made a number of the guns in their display case. He is a veteran of World War II, and the first miniature gun he made was a replica of the M1911, a version of which he carried in the service. He was kind enough to retrieve this very gun, which was not in their display case, and show it to Dan and me. In order to give a good idea of just how amazingly small this completely functional 1911 is, I had to take the picture in hand to scale.

It’s just completely amazing to me that the miniature 1911 has all functioning parts, including a functioning slide. Mr. Kucer also made this pepper box pistol, and I’m guessing they make all the cases for these items as well. The amount of craftsmanship and skill that has to go into making one of these, not even mentioning the time, is just fascinating to me. I have a step stool I built in wood shop in high school, but other than that, I don’t really have any creations like this to my name. Certainly not works of art like these. Their booth is literally filled with tiny little creations, including a brass knuckle, pistol combination, a Webley break top revolver about the size of an iPhone, miniature pen knives. You name it.
In their booth you could also find a lot of other various items, from scale artillery and mortar pieces, to scaled down rounds of ammunition. You can see some of those items in the picture to your left. How about the Weston 3mm Centerfire? Or the the cartridges meant to fire in the 1/6th scale Gatling Gun? One mike-mike percussion caps? All pretty neat stuff. If you can get out to Pittsburgh next year, they said they will be there. Stop by. You can tell these guys are very proud of what they do, and they ought to be. They’ll be happy to show you their craftsman and artisanship. And how would all you 1911 lovers out there like to hang this on your wall?

I’m going to wrap up my convention coverage this weekend. I want to post a little more on the law seminar, and I have one more report from the floor to do. But right now NRA is releasing that the City of Charlotte noticed a 45% drop in crime from the same week last year when the NRA convention was in town, despite the fact that if you dropped the NRA Annual Meeting into the middle of Podunk, it would have been North Carolina’s 10th largest city.

Charlotte was a record setting city, so it would be hard to argue that the Annual Meeting just held there was anything other than successful. But I wanted to take a minute to talk about the venue, since more than a few people had issues with it. Now that I’ve attended four annual meetings, I believe I have enough information to compare venues.

Let’s start with the good:

• Everything in Charlotte was close. I felt like I hardly had to do any walking, and certainly no driving. In Louisville, we had a lot of room, but everything was spread out. You had to drive between downtown and the convention center to go between events.
• The food in Charlotte was great. I didn’t eat at any place I thought sucked.
• The people of Charlotte were great to us.
• It was obviously close to a lot of NRA members, because it set a record.
• It was probably the safest downtown we’ve had a convention in since I’ve attended them. The Charlotte Police and County Sheriff did a very good job keeping up patrols.

Now the bad:

• North Carolina’s carry laws suck. Technically, I’m not even sure I could carry up to my hotel room, because the hotels all have bars in them, and you can purchase and consume alcohol anywhere in the hotel. I did not carry at any point in Charlotte, and had to leave my pistol in a broken hotel room safe. No other venue has also been as in your face with us that carry is prohibited. Technically it was in St. Louis too, but St. Louis folks were discreet about it.
• The Time-Warner Arena sucks as a venue. Not only could we not have an Annual Banquet, but they wanded down our members, and I heard a story from a reader that they wouldn’t let him in because his camera was “too professional looking.” We rented this venue for a private event. As far as I’m concerned, Time-Warner can take their venue policies and shove them up their ass when we’re the ones forking over our member dollars to use it. As far as I’m concerned, wanding down and disrespecting members does not make us feel welcome in the city.
• The city is expensive. When I pay 12 dollars for a drink, I start to feel like I’m in New York City. Beer was cheap in Charlotte, roughly comparable to Philly, but Philly is still a cheaper city to drink in, and that’s sad. Food was expensive too, but I’m willing to shell out for good food, and I had nothing bad in Charlotte.
• There was police presence in weird areas. Now it’s possible the convention center has a make work project for cops, in that you’re required to hire police officers for events, but a board member gave us some tickets to a cigar and brandy reception which had several Charlotte police officers patrolling. There was also two officers stationed just outside the Firearms Law Seminar, obviously based on rumors Dave Hardy was going to ride in on a Carthaginian War Elephant. Are they worried we’re going to get drunk and shoot up the place? Get rowdy? Maybe back in the old days of NRA you’d have to worry about that (things were more exciting then), but not now. I like a beefed up police presence, especially if you’re going to disarm me. Charlotte felt very safe because the CPD had a heavy presence on the street, but I found their presence at private events odd. I like feeling safe, not feeling watched.
• The media was hostile, and some of the local businesses weren’t all that friendly. I heard one restaurant chime to an NRA staffer “You’re with NRA? You know you can’t carry a gun in here right?” The Charlotte Observer also made is feel so welcome when they asked us not to shoot them. We’re used to papers making policy arguments against us during the Convention, but most other cities media and businesses at least make it clear our presence (and money) is welcome in their city.

Overall, I am very happy NRA set a record in the city, but I am not a fan of going back until the State of North Carolina fixes the problems with their carry laws, and the various Charlotte authorities that are responsible for getting big conventions make sure their businesses and media understand the kind of business we’re bringing to the table. We know we have to follow the law, but don’t be dicks about it. Don’t insult us, do various things to disrespect members, and then expect us to come back with a smile. Phoenix was a much more welcoming city. Louisville was a much more welcoming city. St. Louis was as well.

Next year we’ll be in Pittsburgh, another city that will want our money. There won’t be any problems with Pennsylvania’s carry laws, which are among the best in the nation, but lets hope their businesses and media make us feel more welcome than Charlotte’s did.

Sister Toldjah (one of the best blog names out there if you ask me. I wish I had picked a better name) was a new attendee this year, and I’m really glad she had a good time. Other newbie attendees this year were Countertop, American Manifesto, Newbie Shooter, Fat White Man, Moose Droppings, Campaign Spot, Detroit CPL, Personal Armament Blog, and Virginia Gal.

I did not get to meet them all because I spent all day in the Firearms Law Seminar Friday, and a lot of them came Friday. But we were glad to have so many Annual Meeting newbies.

Dave Kopel has attended NRA Annual Meetings for a lot longer than I have, and has some interesting thoughts on how they’ve changed over the years.

SayUncle has some video of the Bushmaster ACR from the exhibit hall. I did not get a chance to stop by the Bushmaster booth myself, which is sad. I have a few other reports from the floor to do, but coverage for the NRA Convention 2010 should wrap up shortly, and we will resume our usual blogging.