WORLD NRA fights a ‘culture war’
Incoming president tells his members they are battling for freedom
HOUSTON— The National Rifle Association kicked off its annual convention Friday with a warning to its members they are engaged in a “culture war” that stretches beyond gun rights, further ramping up emotions surrounding the gun control debate.
NRA first vice-president James Porter, an Alabama lawyer who will assume the organization’s presidency on Monday, issued a fullthroated challenge to U.S. President Barack Obama in the wake of a major victory regarding gun control and called on members to dig in for a long fight that will stretch into the 2014 elections. More than 70,000 NRA members are expected to attend the threeday convention against the backdrop of the national debate over gun control and the defeat of a Senate bill introduced after December’s mass shooting at the Sandyhook elementary school in Newtown, Conn. A small gathering of gun control supporters were outside of the convention in Houston.
Porter’s remarks, which came in a short speech to about 300 people at a grassroots organizing meeting, set the tone for a “stand and fight” convention that is part gun trade show, part political rally and part strategy meeting.
“This is not a battle about gun rights,” Porter said, calling it a culture war. “(You) here in this room are the fighters for freedom. We are the protectors,” said Porter, whose father was NRA president from 1959 to 1960.
Rob Heagy, a former parole officer from San Francisco, agreed with Porter’s description of a culture war. “It is a cultural fight on those10 guarantees,” he said, referring to the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Consti- tution. “Mr. Obama said he wasn’t going after our guns. As soon as the Connecticut thing happened, he came after our guns.”
That theme carried throughout the day and reached a crescendo in a 31⁄ hour political rally punctuated by fiery speeches from state and national conservative leaders.
“You stood up when freedom was under assault and you stood in the gap, you made a difference,” former U.S. senator and Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told the cheering crowd of more than 3,500 at the rally.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry criticized gun control supporters as opportunists who prey on the raw emotions of tragic events.
“You can almost set your watch for how long it takes for people who hate guns, who hate gun owners, to start a new campaign (after a mass shooting),” Perry said.
Obama, who has pushed for gun control measures, was a prime target for criticism the entire day. NRA executive director Chris Cox bragged about the organization’s political victory.
“It was great to see the president throw a temper tantrum in the Rose Garden,” Cox said.
While national polls have shown that a majority of Americans are in favour of expanding background checks, many convention attendees said Friday they were not in favour of such efforts.
“We already have something like those laws now. We don’t need new laws on top of the old laws. They need to enforce the laws that we have,” said Charles Henderson, 59, a farmer from Amarillo, Texas.
In the hall, visitors strolled past acres of displays of rifles, pistols, swords and hunting gear. Under Texas law, attendees with a permit could conceal and carry weapons.
Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice-presidential nominee and ex-Alaska governor, spoke about personal freedoms at the political rally as well, saying NRA members should “keep the faith.”
Arizona governor shuts down gun buyback program as ‘waste’
BILL SCHILLER
FOREIGN AFFAIRS REPORTER
A program aimed at buying back guns from citizens who are willing to surrender them — in a state that has one of the highest gun death rates in the country — has been pushed aside as “a waste of taxpayers’ money.” This week, Arizona’s Republican governor, Jan Brewer, signed into law a bill making it illegal for any city or municipality in Arizona to destroy firearms that citizens have been handing over. Several cities have such “buyback” campaigns, key among them, Tucson, where a mass shooting in 2011 killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Brewer, a strong gun rights advocate, and her Republican supporters in the state legislature, pointed out that a 2010 law already requires authorities to take “seized” weapons and sell them to licensed dealers, who resell them into the general population. Democratic opponents countered, saying weapons collected in “buyback” campaigns are not “seized,” but “voluntarily surrendered,” and should be treated differently. But the governor dismissed the “seized” versus “surrendered” debate, and the GOP-sponsored bill passed. The National Rifle Association saw the new bill’s passage as a common sense victory. In a letter of support in advance of the vote, the NRA claimed that by reselling the guns, the firearms “would maintain their value, and their sale to the public would help recover public funds.” It makes some sense: If a city resells a Sig Sauer P226 in mint condition for $299, the combined state and city taxes would amount to $27.21. But what if just one of those guns finds their way into the hands of a criminal — or a mentally unstable individual like Jared Lee Loughner, the Tucson shooter who, on a crisp January morning in 2011, fired 33 bullets with his Glock pistol? Those costs are still being paid — and will be for years to come.