Second Amendment Sisters, Inc.

http://www.sas-aim.org/rnc.htm

BILL OF RIGHTS RALLY & FLAGSHIP 400,000 DISPLAY
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

July 29 & 30, 2000

After action report- By Maria Heil

We received our permit just two weeks prior to our event. It took longer than usual to obtain the permit, but considering that we were given the East Terrace of the Liberty Bell Pavilion, I was quite happy. The Silent March/Million Mom March people were given the West Terrace, so we had both sides of the issue in the same area with the Liberty Bell between us! Only in America!

So, once we got the permit we started lining up speakers etc?We emailed and faxed our Press Release to every media outlet for which we had contact numbers. We also had a couple of people with extensive media lists getting the Press Release out for us. FReepers also did their part in sending the Press Release out.

Friday, July 28th I received a call from C-Span, among others. It looked like the Platform Committee wasn’t going to be meeting until later in the morning on Saturday, and could I come on their “Washington Journal” show. I said, “Yes.” They would get back to me later with the details. Later they called and said that now it looked like the Platform Committee would be meeting at 8am after all, but they would call me at 7am if anything changed.

Saturday, July 29th at 7am C-Span called, the Platform Committee was going to meet at 9am, so they still wanted me to go on air. I was to be on at about 8:40 until 9:00am.

We got a late start heading out to the site. We had three vehicles carrying the 200 white painted wood bases, 1000 American Flags, one large banner and PVC frame, 25 placards and easels, a battery operated podium, and various and sundry other items. Once we got on site and started setting up, I grabbed a cab and headed for the temporary C-Span studio.

The C-Span interview went well. It was actually a short interview and then we took calls. Most of the calls were pro-rights, even on the Democrat line! There was one call that said that the only time Licensing & Registration has led to confiscation was in Germany. I answered with the fact that it has happened in England, and very shortly it will be happening in Canada. I completely forgot about Australia! I could kick myself, but I did as well as I could under the circumstances!

The show was stretched to 9:10am because Tommy Thompson wasn’t ready to start the Platform Committee meeting until then. Thank You Gov. Thompson!

When I arrived back at the Liberty Bell I saw that we had more help, but we also had a big problem. The 400 American Flags we used for the National Governor’s Conference fit perfectly into the flag bases, but the 600 additional American Flags were on slightly thicker poles and thus would not fit into the holes! Mike Lake, the creator of the bases, had brought his rechargeable drill with him, but that only lasted so long. They ended up using pocketknives to whittle down the poles to fit into the holes!

Anyway, we set up two tables to put our handouts on. The two tables were placed so as to divide the Terrace into thirds. We were so busy! We loaded the far table with stacks of our literature and we were working on our other table when about 20 Anti-Rights people came through the site. They had on MMM and Silent March T-shirts. When they exited our site at the other end, we turned around and all the literature from the one table was gone! We hadn’t had anyone sitting there yet! We did let the Park Police know what had just happened. Then, as we were preparing to re-supply the table, Shirley Lake and I had the same idea, look in the trash can! Sure enough, the people against OUR right to keep and bear arms are also against OUR right to free speech-they had taken all our flyers and dumped them in the trashcan! Joke was on them though, the Park Service had just put fresh bags in the cans prior to them coming through and no one had thrown any trash into that can. So, no harm done to us, but lots of harm done to them as far as their reputation with the authorities!

Within minutes of reporting the minor attempt at sabotage, we had not only the two Park Police assigned to us for the day, but they stationed extra sets of Park Police at each end of the Terrace. We also had the Philadelphia Police Civil (Affairs?) Unit officers introduce themselves to me. As long as we were on site (both days) there was a Civil Unit officer on site. I also had a Federal Mediation Team (I think that was their title, it may not be exact) introduce themselves to me. They said they were there to help if we had any problems! They hung around for hours, according to others.

The site got mobbed with reporters and cameras and people. The C-Span interview had generated a lot of interest. We had MANY delegates (to the RNC) come up and tell us that they had never heard about us until they saw me on C-Span that morning, and they just had to come down and see us! A lot of the press came down because they we intrigued. ALL the cameras filmed the AWESOME sight of 1,000 American Flags gently flapping in the breeze. Tourists were having their pictures taken with all the flags! It was great!

We all did so many interviews that we lost count! The Chicago Tribune interviewed me specifically because I had said in the C-Span interview that I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago! I know I did all the major networks, some documentaries, and NRA Live to name a few.

All day long there was no shortage of Anti-Rights people on our site. You see their pile of old shoes and the mountain of empty cardboard boxes that they were transported in (by a professional moving company) looked rather like a garage sale put on by Imelda Marcos’ poorer relatives! After their early (6am) rally, they had very little ongoing press coverage, so they kept coming over to our site to horn in on our interviews!

At one point they butted in while I was doing an interview for Sugar Pictures. The woman kept stating that no one in America should own guns. I kept asking her, “Well, how do you plan on defending yourself if you are attacked?” Her answer was, “No one in America should have guns!” This went on for a little while with her raising her voice each time she gave the same answer. My voice stayed at a level volume as I kept repeating my question. Finally, she said, “I’ll never be attacked!” I didn’t have much to say after that as the crowd started asking her questions about that statement, and she left shortly after that.

Once I resumed my interview with Sugar Pictures I got to one question that I felt Aaron Kait could answer better than I, so I had him help me out on camera. Well, once again we had an Anti interrupt the interview with a loud question. This time it was directed at Aaron, so I just watched. Things started to get heated. The Anti was getting in Aaron’s face, wagging his finger at him and yelling. The sound guy for Sugar Pictures was swinging the sound boom around to get it all and the backside of the boom hit me in the head-it didn’t hurt, it just startled me. Well, then the Anti got nose to nose with Aaron all the while yelling at him! A Park Police Officer stepped right between them with his back to Aaron and hauled the Anti off site! Things calmed down for a few minutes until some Anti who had been discussing points of view with people in the crowd on our side started yelling, “F*#@ you!” The Park Police also promptly whisked him off!

That was the extent of any problems with the Anti’s, except they put Million Mom buttons on some of our flags. The rest of the day we spoke to hundreds of people about who we are and what we stand for and it was all very intelligent conversation. Later, a Park Police Officer came up to Aaron Kait and told him how much he appreciated the fact that we stayed calm during the altercations with the Anti’s. It changed the Officer’s mind about us (universal us-meaning all the Pro 2A groups)! That is priceless!

The really neat thing was that we had what I call “conversions” on both Saturday and Sunday. We also got a lot of people THINKING about the information the Anti’s are putting out and the facts that we are putting out (soon to be converts, is the way I like to think of them). I think we accomplished our goals of educating people and getting them to think about the information they are receiving and not just blindly accept it!

Sunday things were much slower. We still had a good flow of foot traffic and some press, which Diane McKeough handled for the most part, including a New York TV Station!< p> I think we got “overshadowed” by the Shadow Convention. C-Span was supposed to cover our rally, but they never showed. The Rally itself had a small crowd, but it went very well! Carris Kocher, who presented the history of The Bill of Rights, did a wonderful job. The audience was listening intently. It was very educational!

All the speakers did a great job! Prof. John Lott was his usual informative self and he signed books for people as well. The ten person reading of the Bill of Rights was really neat! We had a variety of people speaking from a variety of points of view, all however, supporting the Second Amendment and pointing out the need to keep fighting for not only the Second Amendment, but also the entire Bill of Rights!

One funny story though, it happened over at the Silent March site. The men’s restrooms were at the end of our site and the women’s restrooms were at the end of the Silent March site. So, anytime one of us women had to use the restroom, we took off any identifying nametags or buttons (and in my case, my hat). Once we looked like anyone else, we would have one of our people escort us, just in case. Well, my husband was sitting outside the women’s restroom while I was inside. He watched, as one older woman proceeded to shop for a pair of shoes among the 15,000 pairs they had laid out! After picking over quite a few pairs of shoes she found a pair of sandals to her liking and walked away with them!!

Maria Heil
National Press Coordinator
Second Amendment Sisters

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