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Old memories--just found this in my files

It's from a 1978 fundraising letter for National Coalition to Ban Handguns (now known as something else). A piece of history lies behind the crossing out.

Sometime in early '79, Neal Knox, then head of NRA-ILA, was preparing to to debate Mike Beard, the head of NCBH. He asked Jack Atkins to retrieve a copy of the fundraising letter, so he could read that paragraph to the audience, and then remark what a strange view NCBH had of firearms. He got the letter and read the paragraph included what is now crossed out, "Well I have, and it gives me an erection."

Neal gasped and said "what the flock?" Atkins looked sheepish, and said he'd typed that in as a joke, and forgotten it. Neal laughed and said he'd cross it out to make sure he didn't read it to the audience. Thirty years ago...

If this seems a little juvenile, you've got to remember how young everyone was. In 1979, I was a whole 28 years old, and Atkins was younger, maybe 25. Neal Knox was 44. Harlon Carter, the father figure to us all, was 65. SAF's founder, Alan Gottlieb, was 32 (he looks so young, I have trouble believing he is my senior). The modern gun rights movement was kicked off by folks who for their most part were in the twenties.