The seemingly endless sunshine in Phoenix, AZ, for this year’s Gun Rights Policy Conference (GRPC) had one very dark cloud: The Nov. 4 election and what a Barack Obama presidency could mean to America’s 90 million gunowners.
Days from now, the election will be decided and with it, the future makeup of the Supreme Court and federal courts will also be determined, probably for many years to come. Former National Rifle Association (NRA) President Sandra Froman, a Tucson, AZ, attorney, said this election will be “the most important election in our lifetime.”
Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), which co-sponsored the Phoenix event, noted that “The road ahead has people sitting in the middle of it.” After reminding the audience that Obama has “consistently voted against our gun rights,” he cautioned that those rights are “one election away from extinction.”
This election could tilt the balance on the Supreme Court away from gun rights, and it will also determine who represents the United States at the United Nations, which is continuing to pursue global gun control, Gottlieb warned.
Indeed, the conference theme was “Elect Freedom,” and regardless of a particular panel’s topic, it seemed that most panel discussions revolved around, or alluded to, the elections.
Despite the specter of an Obama presidency, SAF President Joseph Tartaro said today’s gunowner is in far better shape politically than the gunowner of 30 years ago, thanks to the June Supreme Court ruling in the Heller case, and that “people today see the issue differently than they did 30 years ago.”
He said Americans learned in the wake of the 9/11 attack and Hurricane Katrina that “when disaster strikes, calling 9-1-1 is not your best avenue. They cannot answer your particular problem. You are on your own.”
The 23rd annual GRPC was perhaps one of the more successful in recent memory, with a strong list of speakers and panel subjects. Even though the traditional mid-day address by NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre didn’t happen because LaPierre had a scheduling conflict, the crowd greeted with equal enthusiasm victorious Heller attorney Alan Gura of Virginia.
He was presented with one of the specially-engraved Smith & Wesson Model 442 “Heller Commemorative” revolvers. The gun company, with input from Gun Talk host Tom Gresham, a member of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) board of directors, is producing these guns to help raise money for upcoming court battles that SAF will fight. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of these revolvers, which feature special engraving on the right sideplate, will be donated to SAF.
The two-day event drew hundreds of gun rights activists from all over the country, especially from the West. These conferences have become a gathering of the “Who’s Who” in the gun rights movement.
‘Bad Old Days’
Tartaro led the agenda with a look back at much darker times for gunowners, when only four states had right-to-carry statutes, and when communities including Morton Grove, Oak Park and Wilmette, IL, banned handguns outright.
It was during that period that Washington, DC, passed its restrictive gun control law, and Chicago instituted its virtual handgun ban.
Within minutes of the Heller ruling being issued by the high court on June 26, Tartaro recalled, SAF and the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Chicago and Mayor Richard Daley. The next day, NRA followed with another lawsuit against Chicago, and the surrounding towns that had adopted handgun bans a generation ago. The result has been that most of those suburbs have rescinded their handgun bans.
“They didn’t want to spend the money supporting their cases in the courts in Illinois,” he said. “History isn’t just one event but a stream of events. It’s a river that keeps flowing. Heller is a very important milestone but it didn’t solve all of our problems, and it means we are going to continue to move forward.”
Tartaro noted that even hunting opportunities have improved over what they were 30 to 40 years ago, even with less available land open to hunting. There have also been new gun ranges built.
“We are moving to an era,” he predicted, “when people have discovered that guns are not as scary as they thought they were.”
However, that bright outlook does not erase the potential for a perfect storm if Obama is elected, Gottlieb indicated. He said the next administration will name new leadership at the Department of Interior and US Forest Service, and other agencies that directly impact hunting and shooting.