« Packing up for the NRA convention | Main | More on Joyce Foundation buying a law review »

Back from NRA convention

Didn't have a chance to blog on the run--too dang busy! Estimates were that 60,000 people showed up.

The DeLay speech at the dinner was rather lively. Protestors were... well, it was rather strange.

One protestor showed up in the morning. She had a pink wig and a sign calling for impeachment of Pres. Bush. She told me she had nothing against NRA, agreed with most of its positions, just thought Bush was undermining civil liberties. When I mentioned that to some NRA exhibitors standing in line, one responded "I agree with her--the Patriot Act is unconstitutional as hell!" A couple of mounted police started moving up behind her, nothing terribly close, altho I suspect they were hinting she should move on. She started shouting that she'd done nothing, why were they after her?

Afternon Saturday there were 2-3 protestors outside. Plus one Libertarian trying to recruit. I talked to a couple of them. One just wanted people to use trigger locks, another kept talking about Christianity and how there's too much violence. Neither were from Brady or Million Moms, and had heard nothing about them showing up.

During the DeLay speech there WERE a lot of protestors, hundreds, but they were chanting "Keep your guns, dump DeLay!" It was strange to see protestors who weren't protesting what was going on.

Listened to Ted Nugent in concert -- it was pretty wild. He did things to the Star-Spangled Banner that I didn't know could be done. But I did wish I'd brought hearing protection!

In the mail balloting for directors, Tom Selleck came in No. 1 and Zell Miller No. 2. The problem is that as a consequence, several long term directors (on the board for years and in some cases decades) didn't make the cut. I personally thing a *few* celebs are good, but the count should be kept low; the cost of losing dedicated people, their experience, and their institutional memory is far too high. Most of the Board's business doesn't actually involve national politics (there are the committees that watch over various types of sport shooting, deal with shooting range problems, urban issues, women's issues, finance, etc), where celebrities have no knowledge, and even the national issues are often complex and require long term knowledge.

The directors did comment on how quickly Selleck could handle a photo op! He's obviously accustomed to having a lot of people wanting their pic taken with him when he has other things that need doing. Strike the pose, get the pic, and get moving!

As expected, Sandy Froman, a lady attorney here in Tucson, was elected President. She's a fireball of energy and has a bunch of things she wants done.

I greatly love Houston, by the way. The attitude is just great. You want to jaywalk? Just don't get hit. I figured that out after seeing people do it with an officer standing next to them. Another officer would just gesture to people to stop jaywalking when he saw a car coming. Outside the board meeting, I asked an officer if smoking was permitted in the hotel. He replied "No, but nobody's looking."

· contemporary issues