At NRA Convention, a Feeling of Overdue Vindication

The National Rifle Assn.--which spent eight years in the political wilderness during Bill Clinton’s presidency--turned its annual meeting Saturday into a celebration of its role in helping George W. Bush restore the gun lobby to respectability.

“You have proven that united, you can’t be defeated,” NRA President Charlton Heston told tens of thousands of cheering members. “The will of this body can’t be ignored by this country.”

President Bush, while declining an offer to attend the gathering, sent Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton--herself an enthusiastic gun-rights advocate--to convey his gratitude to and support for the group. Her appearance demonstrated the new respect accorded the NRA after eight years of feeling that it was the whipping boy for liberal social critics.

“Many of you helped President Bush win the election; we thank you,” Norton told the crowd.

“Some people say we can’t support 2nd Amendment freedom and protect our communities and our rights, but my friends, President Bush is proving them wrong.”

The gun lobby has reason to be pleased: The NRA and its activists spent about $20 million on the last election, much of it aimed at motivating its members and other like-minded Americans to go to the polls to help elect Bush.

Many political strategists, including Clinton, credited the organization with making the difference in some states that had close contests--especially Tennessee, Arkansas and West Virginia, any one of which could have swung the election to then-Vice President Al Gore, Bush’s Democratic opponent.

Under normal circumstances, NRA members would greet a videotape of Clinton with jeers. But Saturday, they erupted in applause when they were shown a tape of Clinton after Bush emerged as the winner of the nation’s closest presidential election in history.

“You’ve got to give it to them, they did a good job,” Clinton said, referring to the pivotal role the NRA played.

In speech after speech, NRA leaders praised their members for making the difference in November. But the praise from Heston, a father figure to the group, seemed to resonate most: “And by your works, history shall know you. You proud, you courageous, you glorious 21st century patriots.”

Many NRA members said they felt great relief having in the White House a man who, as Texas governor, promoted and signed legislation giving residents the right to carry concealed firearms for the first time in 125 years.

“I think everybody felt that, for the eight years of the Clinton administration, we were denigrated and bashed and blamed for every social evil,” said Mark Hoeppner, 38, a family farmer from Lexington, Mo. “With Bush in the White House, we feel better.”

During the break between the morning session and the evening banquet, thousands of members flocked to a huge hall at the Kansas City Convention Center, where scores of gun makers were showing off their wares. Carol Cation eyed a sleek rifle called a Tikka Hunter.

“I feel less threatened now than I did before the election,” said Cation, a car dealership bookkeeper from Savonburg, Kan., who likes to shoot at targets in her backyard.

NRA leaders urged the rank and file Saturday to redirect their efforts toward two new targets: defeating the landmark campaign finance reform bill that the Senate approved last month and blocking proposed legislation that would require background checks for purchases of firearms at gun shows.

The NRA and its members were the sixth-most generous group or corporation to national Republican Party committees in 2000, donating $1.5 million, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Andrew Arulanandam, an NRA spokesman, said the group’s total investment was closer to $20 million--including its issue ads, get-out-the-vote efforts and contributions to individual candidates.

Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice president, told members that if the measure prohibiting groups such as theirs from airing advertisements during the eight weeks before an election had been in effect in 2000, a different man might now be in the White House--and their gun rights might be imperiled. He called the legislation an attack on the 1st Amendment right to free speech.

“We won’t be silenced,” he exclaimed. “If we have to, we’ll launch the ‘good ship NRA’ and drop anchor in international waters just off the coast and broadcast the truth from our own TV towers.”

LaPierre cautiously aimed his rhetoric at Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a sponsor of the Senate campaign finance reform bill and a legislative proposal requiring background checks at gun shows.

“An anti-1st Amendment John McCain and an anti-2nd Amendment John McCain will put John McCain on the wrong side of the Bill of Rights,” LaPierre said, referring to the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.

Norton’s appearance gave the group another reason to believe that they have an ally in the new administration. She thanked them for the $465 million in excise taxes from their purchases of ammunition and firearms that fund wildlife habitat enhancement programs, praised the group’s conservation programs, and declared her determination to be partners with them.

“You are America’s unsung conservation heroes,” she said.

But gun control advocates were outraged by Norton’s decision to address the group, calling it one more sign that a top NRA official was right in February 2000 when he said that if Bush won, the NRA would “work out of” the White House.

“By sending a member of his Cabinet to represent the Bush administration at the NRA’s annual convention, President Bush is endorsing the dangerous agenda of the gun lobby,” said Michael D. Barnes, president of Handgun Control.

White House deputy counselor Dan Bartlett, while saying that the president does not share this concern, underscored that the NRA does not have an office at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

The NRA had no record of a Cabinet secretary’s addressing any of the previous 129 annual meetings, but President Reagan spoke to the group twice while in office. former President Bush did so once.