What covering the 2017 NRA convention was like

Last year’s National Rifle Association Annual Meeting brought 80,000 people to downtown Atlanta, and on opening day I interviewed some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.

Given the heated protests preceding the April 2017 event at the Georgia World Congress Center and the “fake news media” narrative some embrace, I thought covering it might be awkward. Nope. To a person, everyone I approached wasn’t just friendly. It’s like they were personally glad I was there.

A former Navy SEAL from Ohio was there with his twin grandsons. Not long after they arrived, the two 11-year-olds were firing pellets from air rifles, their form and marksmanship impressive. A lady from New Mexico was happy to run into friends she’d met at past events and eager to check out the acres of merchandise. Living out West, she noted, means living with rattlesnakes.

“I shot my first rattlesnake five years ago, and I’ve been shooting them ever since,” she said, giddy at dispatching the venomous foes.

I ran into former U.S. Army Ranger Kris “Tonto”

Paronto, a survivor of the 2012 Benghazi attack, and he remembered me from our interview during the press tour for “13 Hours,” the movie that depicted the event. Swarmed with fans, the ebullient Tonto took a minute to talk with me again.

“I’m still just a normal kid from Nebraska,” he said. “I’m humbled when people want to talk to me.”

Then NRA leaders and President Donald

Trump arrived for keynote addresses, and the conference vibe changed.

NRA chief Wayne LaPierre declared “academic and media elites” to be the biggest threats to the country. The crowd roared. The cavernous auditorium was darkened, but the press pen in the center of the huge meeting hall was illuminated by our laptop screens. Reporters were easy to spot, in other words.

“Give the media the big, fat black eye it deserves!” LaPierre bellowed. More cheering. “When did the media stop being journalists and start becoming PR flacks for the destruction of our country?”

What? I live here. Why would I destroy my home?

My dad and grandfathers all served in the military. My father-in-law did, too. My great-uncle Bill Hampton was a highly decorated veteran of three wars; an honor guard fired ceremonial blanks at his funeral. My husband shoots sporting clays, and there are more than a dozen firearms (all long guns that must be loaded prior to each shot, and a number of antique pieces that haven’t been fired in decades) in my house.

No one in the angry crowd knew that. All they knew was that, according to their leader, I was the enemy.

There was more shouting outside, as protesters set up shop near Centennial Olympic Park before marching through downtown.

“We are protesting this murder fantasy convention with mockery and anger and will continue our direct actions until the country is free from the grip of the violence-for-profit industry,” the group Betsy Riot said in a media release.

I caught up with the roving movement and recognized a neighbor in the crowd. We talked about our hydrangeas for a minute, then she resumed the march and I headed back inside the convention hall. The speeches over, conventioneers seemed happy and friendly again. I wouldn’t call them a murder-fantasy crowd any more than I’d agree that reporters want to destroy the country.

This year’s NRA convention is scheduled to be held in Dallas, although the city’s mayor pro tem wants them to go elsewhere. Corporations including rental car companies have ended discount programs for NRA members amid outrage over the Parkland, Fla., shooting spree.

I hope that if the convention does go on as planned, people from opposing camps will find a way to talk to each other, possibly even find some common ground.

“I believe there should be background checks,” a welder from Atlanta told me ahead of last year’s convention. “Not everyone should have a gun; clearly not people with mental illness.”

“I don’t think anyone that’s a member of the NRA wants to see guns end up in the hands of someone who is a danger or threat to society,” said a single mom from Orlando. After she lost two friends in the Pulse nightclub shooting spree, one of the mass shootings I covered in 2016, she wanted her son to learn gun safety.

Added a Coast Guard member from Florida, “Let’s have an educated conversation about it, not a violent one.”

HYOSUB SHIN / HSHIN@AJC.COM The NRA’s 2017 Annual Meeting was held in Atlanta.