My photos/recap from the 2010 NRA convention in Charlotte, NC

I uploaded three small sets here :) For future reference, there is now a “PHOTOS” link on the main menu of the blog as I will be adding photos from time to time.

Had an awesome 3 days getting to know the “lay of the land” with the NRA. As I’ve written before, I am not a gun owner, nor will I likely ever be, but I will stand up and defend your right to bear arms much in the way that many secular Americans will defend my right to be a Christian. It was nice to “step outside the box” and learn more about an issue that is not a “pet” issue for me but is nevertheless an important one for all Americans.

Of course, I enjoyed getting to see Sarah Palin, Amb. John Bolton, and Chuck Norris in person, but I had an even better time meeting and getting to know “bitterb” aka Christie, the Blog Bash Organizer Extraordinaire, who is about the nicest (and most patient!) gal you’ll ever meet, NRO Campaign Spot’s Jim Geraghty, who I quite literally bumped into back in the media area and who I sat by and chatted with in the opening hours of Friday’s political speeches, and ST reader/friend XRLQ, who had the patience of a saint in educating me a bit while we viewed the various floor exhibits today. He talked to me about some different types of gun rights groups, gun safety, taught me a little bit about how to aim/shoot, about how you should never use the bullets from a bigger caliber gun in a smaller gun – and how manufacturers were coming up with ways to stop that, gave me some recommendations on the kind of gun a woman who only wants one for self defense should have, and a few other interesting tidbits of info. Much thanks to him for showing me around the exhibit hall and for just being an all around nice gentleman.

As a side note: To say that what was on that floor was “gun porn” would be an understatement! LOL.

Anyway, get this: I even held a few (non-loaded, of course) guns in my hand. A first. I contemplated having a picture taken with me holding some fancy pistol, but I’m no Sarah Palin! Trust me – she looks better with a firearm in her hands than I do! ;)

I did purchase something while at the exhibits today: The best of the best pepper spray at the Guardian Protective Device booth. Got 4 of them – 1 for me, my sisters, and mom. Can never be too safe these days.

All in all, it was a great time. What I took away from it, outside of the reaffirmation that the people who attended this convention were anything but “bitter gun clingers,” was that it is imperative that the NRA continue to emphasize the fact that the vast majority of mass casualty firearm tragedies in this country come from either people who did not own a legal firearm, or maybe got someone else to purchase one for them, and that EVERY one of those tragedies maybe would not have been a tragedy if a legally armed person who was licensed to carry and shoot one in self defense and in defense of those around them had been nearby (example 1 and example 2).

And besides, as Sarah Palin asked, who promotes “gun violence” more? The NRA, or Hollyweird?

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