For the children.....
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Posted on 04/19/2005 1:29:26 PM PDT by neverdem
NRA fired up over convention results — and city fared well, too
With nearly 60,000 visitors and record income for the National Rifle Association, the group on Monday declared its first Houston convention "one of the best."
NRA officials raved about the three-day convention, which ended Sunday.
"That was an amazing annual meeting," said the group's new president, Sandra S. Froman.
Jordy Tollet, president of the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, was pleased as well, saying he hopes the NRA will return to Houston. The NRA moves its convention around the country every year.
"I think they had a really great show," Tollet said. "I want them to know we really want them back."
The NRA did not have a count available Monday of how many new members joined during the convention, but Froman said there were so many that "they ran out of membership applications."
NRA Chief Executive Officer Wayne LaPierre said exhibitors complimented the George R. Brown Convention Center for ease of getting their wares in and out.
Since the "5 acres of guns, guides and gear" is one of the convention's biggest selling points, LaPierre said the exhibitors' opinions are crucial.
"It has been one of the best meetings in the history of the NRA," LaPierre said Monday, during the NRA's board of directors meeting.
The organization has had only one larger annual convention, attracting 61,000 people to Pittsburgh last year during a presidential race.
NRA officials say major political contests increase interest in the group.
The NRA board voted unanimously Monday to elect Froman president, replacing Kayne Robinson, and re-elect LaPierre as executive vice president.
"I am honored and humbled," said Froman, an Arizona attorney who is the NRA's second female president.
One of Froman's focuses as president will be expanding weapons-training opportunities for women.
"It goes without saying that a 5-foot, 55-year-old woman may well have more use for a firearm than a 6-foot, 25-year-old man," she told the board.
Froman also emphasized the importance of getting NRA-friendly judges appointed.
"We have judges rewriting laws and imposing their will on the people," she said. "Some are even rewriting the Constitution."
The board honored Robinson, who said it is crucial that people have firing ranges at which to practice.
"If people don't have a place to shoot, and we are reduced to ... sitting in the basement with a blanket over our heads looking at our gun, then we are a dying movement," he said.
Also Monday, the NRA board honored Zell Miller, the former Democratic senator from Georgia who attacked his own party as "warped" during a speech to the Republican National Convention last year.
Miller was given the NRA's Harlon B. Carter Legislative Achievement Award.
God made man & woman...Samuel Colt made them equal!
I've always thought it odd that the annual NRA event never makes it further west than Denver.
Big NRA ~ Bump!
I attended Saturday - ran out of time before I saw everything in the exhibit hall!
Got a Buck folder with C.J. Buck's autograph!
AND an autographed copy of Zell Miller's new book.
This must really burn the Houston Chronicly Wrong to have to say good things about the NRA...
--it was in Reno in 2002, Salt Lake City about '94---I doubt that it will be in Commiefornia, however until a sea change in that state's attitude---
They shouldn't come here to please the state but to please NRA members.
F**k the state.
This New Yorker understands why the NRA (founded in NYC by the way) will not hold its annual meeting in New York, Boston or anyplace in California outside of the Central Valley.
Along with the places you mention, I suspect Chicago will wait a long time---
NRA Bump!
Errr... there's something wrong with that?
Life Member bump.
It depends on where you live.
I have been to two of them they have been a good time.
Doubt it'll be in Washington nor ORegon any time soon either.
See that part about the economic impact?
$50 million?
Wonder if they include the $1000 or so I spent including lodging in Galveston over the weekend?
Me too:
I went to the one in Nashburg a few years back, when I lived in Shelbyville, then this one.
Just makes ya drool!
Me too:
I went to the one in Nashburg a few years back, when I lived in Shelbyville, then this one.
Just makes ya drool!
ACK!
I hate to double-post!
(Hanging head in shame...)
They should hold conventions in socialist Berkeley, or in Madison, WI...that'll urinate off liberals.
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