N.R.A. Leadership Rallies Members for 2014 Elections

By James Dao May 4, 2013

HOUSTON — In speech after speech at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention here this weekend, its top leaders and political allies blasted President Obama and other gun control advocates, warned against “all-out, historic attacks” on the constitutional right to possess firearms, and issued a rallying cry to members to become a political force in next year’s midterm elections and the 2016 presidential race.

“We are in the midst of a once-in-a-generation fight for everything we care about,” Wayne R. LaPierre, the association’s executive vice president and principal spokesman, told a cheering throng of members at the convention center here on Saturday. “We have a chance to secure our freedom for a generation, or to lose it forever.”

“We must remain vigilant, ever resolute, and steadfastly growing and preparing for the even more critical battles that loom before us,” he said.

Praising the N.R.A.’s membership for helping defeat a bipartisan Senate proposal to expand background checks for gun buyers last month, Mr. LaPierre said that the Senate fight had helped swell the association’s membership to a record five million people.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the convention theme was “Stand and Fight,” and much of the fight was directed toward Mr. Obama, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York and those Mr. LaPierre described as their supporters in the “media elite” who were “conspiring right now, regrouping, planning, organizing” to exploit “the next horrific crime.”

The Senate bill “wouldn’t have prevented Newtown, couldn’t have prevented Tucson or Aurora and won’t prevent the next tragedy,” he said.

Later on, he added the Boston Marathon bombings to bolster his position.“How many Bostonians wished they had a gun two weeks ago?” Mr. LaPierre said. “How many other Americans now ponder that life-or-death question?” Mr. LaPierre and James W. Porter II, who was expected to be named president by the board of directors on Monday, succeeding David Keene, both urged N.R.A. members to become active in the 2014 midterm elections — which Mr. Porter described as more important than last year’s presidential election — and then the 2016 presidential race.

“We do that and Obama can be stopped,” Mr. Porter said.

The lineup of speakers at Friday’s Leadership Forum looked like the early field for the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, featuring Senator Ted Cruz and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, and Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate, as well as video appearances by Representative Paul Ryan and Gov. Scott Walker, both of Wisconsin.

Ms. Palin, wearing a black T-shirt that said “Women Hunt,” criticized gun control proposals that “won’t even work for their stated intended purposes.” Mr. Cruz warned that any infringement on the Bill of Rights would undermine the entire Constitution. And just about every speaker poked fun at the N.R.A.’s favorite cast of enemies: Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, and Mr. Bloomberg, whom Mr. LaPierre described as the “national nanny.”

Critics of the N.R.A. lined up outside the convention center.

“Somehow they managed to make the N.R.A. the victims of the Newtown shootings,” said Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, which advocates for stricter gun control. “I think the average American would be shocked by their language.”

Across from the sprawling convention hall, a small group of gun control advocates spent Friday and Saturday reading the names of about 4,000 Americans killed by gun violence since the school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Among the protesters was Patricia Maisch, a survivor of the mass shooting in Tucson where former Representative Gabrielle Giffords was wounded. “I’m here to not let the issue go away,” she said. “I don’t think people are going to let that happen this time.”

Yet beneath the politically charged surface of the convention, it was clear that many of the tens of thousands of N.R.A. members had come for things other than speeches. There were seminars on competitive shooting, firearms law and hunting, including “Advanced Sausage Processing, BBQ and Smoke Cooking Techniques,” taught by Brad Lockwood, an expert and TV host. Outside the “Defensive Shooting Skills Development” course, David Shoffner, 66, a car dealer from Redding, Calif., said he had owned guns since he was a boy, but had never taken a defensive shooting class. “I’m worried about society going downhill,” he said, asserting that drug-related crime had picked up even in his largely agricultural region of Northern California.

Amiable and engaging, Mr. Shoffner described himself as a “conservative guy” descended from a rancher who fled Missouri after shooting a man who cheated at poker. He professed to hating bloodshed and said he would not hunt because he did not like killing animals.

But he admired the N.R.A.’s efforts to “keep the Second Amendment alive” and, like many other conventioneers, expressed bafflement with the mind-set that “you can stop evil” with gun control.

Even as the speeches ground on in a huge meeting hall, thousands of members were downstairs, where acre-upon-acre of kiosks displayed the latest in hunting and camping equipment, and weaponry, from futuristic black-matte rifles to six-shooters to knives that would have made Jim Bowie envious.

Conventioneers could admire a vintage Volkswagen bus outfitted with a kind of mini- Gatling gun (not for sale).

And Jim Revis took photographs of his daughter, Lais, 19, as she posed with a pink-and- white military-style rifle. She said she planned to start attending gun safety classes because she wanted a gun for both hunting and self-defense. “The main thing I get out of this is to get together with people who think the way I do,” said Mr. Revis, who lives in the Houston area.

John Shia, an engineer from Houston who is also a yoga, martial arts and gun enthusiast, said he had come to love target shooting after emigrating from Japan 20 years ago. “Shooting is a fine motor skill, like sewing,” he said. “Like yoga.”

Mr. Shia, 47, a longtime N.R.A. member, said he had come to the exhibition hall to check out laser-targeting systems.

“The speeches are a waste of time,” Mr. Shia said. “The gun control debate, you can argue it either way. It just depends on what data set you use.” He paused, recognizing that he was not voicing a typical N.R.A. viewpoint. “We can be a diverse group,” he said. “But I guess I’m not the average member.”