By JIM VERTUNO and JUAN A. LOZANO
Associated Press
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 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.