N.R.A. Sounds a Defiant Note at Convention
By JAMES DAO

Associated Press

More than 40,000 people were expected at the National Rifle Association convention this weekend in Charlotte, N.C. Kay and Jay Davis of LaGrange, Ga., examined Smith & Wesson handguns Friday.

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CHARLOTTE, N.C., May 19 — A week after hundreds of thousands of mothers demonstrated for gun control in the nation’s capital, thousands of gun owners gathered here today for the National Rifle Association’s 129th annual convention, vowing to fight new firearms restrictions and threatening to carry their pro-gun sentiments into voting booths this fall.
As they tested the heft of 9 millimeter handguns and checked the scopes of hunting rifles in a dense forest of display booths on the exhibition floor, N.R.A. members time and again expressed the same sentiments: Stop portraying us as right-wing nuts. Crack down on criminals, not legal gun owners. And leave us, and our guns, alone.

Ed Kelleher, 49, an N.R.A. member and a computer systems designer from West Columbia, S.C., said: “We’re in the midst of a concerted assault on gun owners. We’re always being described as crazies. But look at me. I don’t walk around with a gun in my hand and a knife in my teeth.”

The N.R.A. has been perhaps the best example of a dynamic common to many special interest organizations: it flourishes amid adversity.

Nearly broke and losing members in the mid-1990′s, the group said it had gained nearly a million members, to a record 3.6 million, in the past year. Its leaders and members attribute that growth to the increasing prominence of gun control as a political issue, from the presidential race on down.

David Sikorsky, 50, an engineer from High Point, N.C., said, “I think Bill Clinton has been the best thing to happen to the N.R.A.

“And he’s been terrific for gun sales.” Mr. Sikorsky said. “People really think he would try to take away their guns.”

N.R.A. leaders have done their best to stoke the siege mentalities of members. The cover of a new N.R.A. magazine, “America’s First Freedom,” features a drawing of a politician with Vice President Al Gore’s face and President Clinton’s hair.

“He’s Clinton to the Gore: The Face of Gun Hatred in America,” reads the headline beside the drawing.

And the organization’s president, Charlton Heston, who is expected to be elected to a third term during the convention, kicked off the event with a passionate plea to members to make the November election a referendum on the right to bear arms.

“This year holds the most important political elections in the history of our country,” he said in a videotaped message. “Our gun rights and the Second Amendment are truly in peril. As the sun rises on Nov. 8, who’s won and who’s lost will define the quality of freedom for the next century.”

In keeping with the buoyantly defiant mood of its members, the N.R.A. announced plans today to open a theme store and restaurant in Times Square in New York City, which has some of the toughest gun laws in the country.

Wayne LaPierre, N.R.A. executive vice president, said the store would sell hiking, camping and other outdoors equipment — but not guns — emblazoned with an N.R.A. logo. It would also have an arcade featuring “virtual shooting” games intended to promote target shooting and hunting, Mr. LaPierre said.

A carnival atmosphere enveloped much of the convention, which N.R.A. officials said was expected to draw 40,000 people over three days.

Inside on the sprawling exhibition floor, people checked out the latest in laser technology, vendors in rawhide vests and ten-gallon hats hawked replicas of six-shooters and men wearing camouflage caps fired at computer-simulated pheasants.

Outside on the street, members of a gun owners’ group, Grass Roots South Carolina, provided a bit of street theater for Second Amendment true believers. Before a white banner that said, “Your Future Under Gun Control,” four commandos dressed in military gear and armed with toy assault weapons attacked a blindfolded, flag-draped and, needless to say, unarmed, Lady Liberty.

For all its campiness, the performance captured the sentiments of many people at the convention. Sometimes plaintively, sometimes angrily, they expressed frustration with what they considered the relentlessly hostile attitudes of gun-control advocates against gun owners.

Many people said that individual gun regulations, on their own, were often not onerous.

But piled one atop another, those regulations have become burdensome and aggravating. Most people interviewed at the convention said they had come to view any new gun restrictions as a first step toward the outlawing and confiscation of all weapons.

Many said they were particularly worried about a central proposal of the Million Mom March: registering handguns and licensing handgun owners. Mr. Gore has endorsed licensing all new handgun owners, among an array of other gun regulations.

“The plan on the other side is to put new laws on the books that aren’t enforced so that they can say, ‘these laws don’t work,’ ” said Thomas Lovelace, 69, a retired management consultant from Clifton, Va. “Then they’ll feel justified in confiscating our guns.”

If there were Gore supporters in the crowd, they were not admitting it publicly. Just about everyone interviewed said they would vote for Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Mr. Bush has been a strong ally of the N.R.A. in Texas, but recently he has tried to put some distance between himself and the organization, clearly aware that he needs to win the votes of some moderate Democrats and independents in November.

Still, N.R.A. officials say the group will almost certainly throw its resources behind Mr. Bush.

But in this crowd, even Mr. Bush’s strong record of supporting the N.R.A. was not always considered enough. Mr. Kelleher said he thought Mr. Bush would probably allow a gradual erosion of the rights of gun owners.

“I’ll vote for Bush, but I won’t be that upset if he loses,” he said.

With its convention coming on the heels of the Million Mom March, and with gun-control advocates trying to cast the proposals as child safety measures, the N.R.A. was clearly trying to burnish its image as a family-oriented organization.

A group of adolescent firearms enthusiasts were honored today, and there will be a workshop on women in the N.R.A. on Sunday. Mr. LaPierre used his opening speech to assert that recreational shooting is a “friendly, wholesome, family” sport.

But for all that, the majority of conventioneers were white, older men. That said, one of the younger ones, 20-year-old Matthew Swaim of Robeson, N.C., was clearly in sync with his elders.

“The way I see it, only armed people are free,” he said after checking out some shiny new pistols at the Smith & Wesson booth

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