Gun Rights Policy Conference

If you don't know what this is--every year, several gun rights organization put together an event for gun rights activists in various parts of the country. It is free to attend, and they unload a pile of useful books and materials on you. I have never gone to one of these before--but being one of the speakers certainly incentivized me a lot!

Anyway, many of the people that you have heard of, if you are concerned about gun rights, were there. (Sorry about these pictures--I decided to bring my pocket HP PhotoSmart E427 camera instead of the Pentax. These are the sort of situations where the Pentax is a big winner.)

Robert A. Levy of the Cato Institute and Alan Gura, both of who are attorneys on the lawsuit that has so far) overturned DC's gun control law were there:


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I had a chance to talk to Mr. Gura at some length about what I could contribute to their efforts, if the Supreme Court decides to hear DC's appeal.

There was a panel discussing state legislative concerns which included several state legislators. As you might expect, all of them were pretty effective speakers, but Jackie Walorski, who represents the 21st district in Indiana's lower house, was just on fire!


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Dr. John Lott was there as well.


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Amusing story. There was an awards part of the program from 1:00 to 1:30, and the panel that I was on started at 1:30. So I wolfed down my lunch, and went for a swim. I figured that I could skip the awards part of the program, and just be back in plenty of time for the 1:30 panel.

Well, my arms haven't been swimming much recently, so I cut the swim short. Shortly after I sat down, they announced the James Madison Award for Journalism in Defense of the Second Amendment was awarded to... Clayton Cramer for Armed America! I was really not expecting this, in spite of winning this award some years ago jointly with Dave Kopel for our Tennessee Law Review paper.

Somehow I ended up on a panel about Popular Culture with Dr. Timothy Wheeler of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership and Nicole Stallard of Pink Pistols, the gay gun rights organization. Nicole explained that Pink Pistols opposes hate crimes laws, preferring to see shall issue laws in all 50 states instead. (I presume because they think it makes more sense to discourage or kill gay bashers instead of punishing a criminal after they have already victimized someone.)

It was also nice to see old friends like David Hardy and Don Kates--and to finally meet Dave Kopel in person--someone with whom I have collaborated for many years, but never actually met! I also met a lot of my readers--and people that only knew me by reputation.

It wasn't all work. I'll tell you in another post about my sightseeing in Kentucky, Indiana--and my visit to 1794 Ohio.