NRA attendee John Joseph of Sebastian, Fla. waits in line outside the George R. Brown Convention Center before the opening of the National Rifle Association’s Annual Meetings and Exhibits. More than 70,000 are expected to attend the event with more than 500 exhibitors represented. The convention will feature training and education demos, the Antiques Guns and Gold Showcase, book signings, speakers including Glenn Beck, Ted Nugent and Sarah Palin as well as NRA Youth Day on Sunday.HOUSTON – The National Rifle Association kicked off its annual convention Friday with a warning to its members they are engaged in a “culture war” that stretches beyond gun rights, further ramping up emotions surrounding the gun control debate.
NRA First Vice President James Porter, a Birmingham, Ala., attorney who will assume the organization’s presidency Monday, issued a full-throated challenge to President Barack Obama in the wake of a major victory regarding gun control and called on members to dig in for a long fight that will stretch into the 2014 elections.
More than 70,000 NRA members are expected to attend the three-day convention amid the backdrop of the national debate over gun control and the defeat of a U.S. Senate bill that would have expanded background checks for gun sales. It was introduced after December’s mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. A small gathering of gun control supporters were outside of the convention in Houston.
Porter’s remarks came in a short speech to about 300 people at a grass-roots organizing meeting and set the tone for a “Stand and Fight”-themed convention that is part gun trade show, political rally and strategy meeting.
“This is not a battle about gun rights,” Porter said, calling it “a culture war.”