http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/07/1376216/-Gun-Control-at-NRA-Convention?detail=email
While guns may be be great in churches, schools, universities, bars and sitting in handbags next to toddlers in Walmart shopping carts — the National Rifle Association (NRA) isn’t so keen on guns at their Annual Convention.
The convention (April 10-12 in Nashville) is expected to draw a crowd of 70,000 people. Naturally all of them are do-gooders — there to ogle, stroke and cling to the “16 acres of guns” (according to an ad for the event). Among the 555 Exhibitors (according to the NRA’s event website) are Smith & Wesson, SigSauer, Beretta USA and Remington Arms. So will there be guns? — you betcha. Will they work? — uh, no. Sorry, but these guns won’t fire.
According to the security plan that was adopted by the NRA soon after Nashville was chosen to host their annual convention — all guns on the convention floor will be nonoperational with the firing pins removed. In addition, any guns purchased during the NRA convention will have to be picked up at a Federal Firearms License dealer (near the purchaser’s home) and will require a legal identification (I expect they mean at the time of pickup of said merchandise.)
(See last item on this page.)
Speakers include Bobby Jindal, Jeb Bush (the white one, not the one of hispanic origin), Scott Walker, Mike Pence, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson and Lindsey Graham — and of course the perpetually-validation-seeking Sarah Palin and Donald Trump. And for those with a nostalgia for treason, Oliver North will be making a booth appearance. Ted Nugent is also scheduled because Freedom is not Free and We the People Must Keep It Alive! Well, true nothing stinks more than dead freedom -- except maybe rank hypocrisy.
So the questions begs: What if some crazy guy decides to show up at the convention with an operational gun and several high-capacity magazines and none of the guns on the floor have firing pins? Who will stop the bad guy? Are they going to throw non-working guns at him hard enough to knock him out?
I’m sure there will be security officers around, but it’s not gonna look great having 10 or 20 innocent NRA participants shot down because nobody can defend themselves. When security arrives on the scene, how will they know which gun, out of all those being held, is smoking? Of course this is all hypothetical. But one has to wonder, if guns are so safe, why not allow them to be functional during this annual NRA convention? Who could handle guns safer than NRA members? That doesn’t mean you have to load ammunition in them, mind you. But seems a little disingenuous to make the guns inoperable at an NRA convention yet operable everywhere else.
i love the premise of the question, but those guns with the firing pins removed are more than likely not the only guns at the convention. do they pat down or use a metal detector for patrons, probably not so those non lethal weapons are easily trumped by the one under the coat or in the pocket and that crazier guy in the question has less of a chance because the whole room is strapped. but then you have to worry about panic cross firing and 70,000 targets makes pretty good chances that some will be hit even the ones at the podium, LaPierre?
