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THE
NATION
DeLay Finds Safe Haven
at NRA Meeting
The beleaguered House leader is met with applause as he voiced his
support for gun rights and took aim at the group's common foes.
By Scott Gold
Times Staff Writer
April 17, 2005
HOUSTON House Majority Leader Tom DeLay returned
Saturday to the embrace of his home turf and core supporters, capping a
convention of the National Rifle Assn. by telling the organization's leaders
that guns were a crucial instrument of keeping the peace and preserving the
American way of life.
"It isn't just our homes and selves that need defending," he said
Saturday night in the convention's keynote speech. "It is our freedom
.
God gave it. The Constitution preserves it. And together we will defend
it."
The NRA gave DeLay an antique-style, flintlock rifle.
He held it above his head and echoed the words former NRA President Charlton Heston famously shouted when given his own commemorative
gun: "From my cold, dead hands."
DeLay did not directly address the ethics and other
controversies swirling around him.
The Texas Republican's appearance represented the
President Bush delivered a message by videotape to NRA leaders as 3,000 people
dined on steak with cognac sauce. He pledged to fight new gun control
provisions and called on Congress to pass a measure that would grant gun
manufacturers and dealers immunity from some lawsuits. The measure's backers
say it would protect companies from frivolous lawsuits; critics say it would
sacrifice public safety to reward the powerful gun lobby.
DeLay's appearance attracted about 200 protesters to
a convention center in downtown
Several made it clear that they were not here to protest the NRA, but DeLay. One of his constituents, 51-year-old Jackie Rico't, a chemical company worker from
"I'm not against the NRA," Rico't said.
"But DeLay is bankrupt morally and ethically.
We need to take our district back."
In
And he apologized amid criticism for saying that judges would "answer for
their behavior" for not intervening in the Terri Schiavo
case; some alleged that he could have incited violence against judges.
Inside the convention DeLay was received with a
standing ovation.
"I hope the national media saw that," he said, the only allusion to
the controversy.
DeLay has been one of the NRA's most stalwart
supporters for more than 20 years, even fighting gun control legislation that
has popular support, such as a program giving cities money to buy guns from
residents. Though some have suggested that DeLay
should resign his leadership post, many NRA members blamed his problems on
Democrats.
"It's just another target the liberals have found," said David Adams
of
These are heady days for the NRA. The organization's membership, 4 million, and
the number of gun owners in the
The group has pushed concealed weapons measures onto the books or before
lawmakers for consideration in several states. And in
Critics said the measure would turn
A recent sign of the NRA's might was the silence after a Minnesota teen shot
and killed five students, a security guard and a teacher before killing himself
last month. Unlike after the Columbine shootings when the NRA was widely
criticized there has been no major threat of new gun control provisions.
"Let the enemies of freedom take notice, we in this room have beaten you
and beaten you and beaten you for 25 years," NRA Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre told the crowd at the convention's opening
ceremony.
Musician Charlie Daniels, who served as emcee, launched the convention by
calling the political left "silly and unrealistic, a cadre of
save-the-whales and kill-the-babies pantywaists."
"They go toddling down the primrose path of utopian idealism and, in the
process, they will take away our gun rights and sacrifice the sovereignty of
our nation on the altar of political correctness," Daniels said.
"Thanks to Americans like you, it ain't going to
happen."
Political leaders sought to cast the rising sense of triumph among NRA members
onto a broader political agenda. U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Texas) received
perhaps the biggest applause of the weekend when he told the opening ceremony
crowd that liberals were not only attempting to peck away at the 2nd Amendment
but also were "trying to tear down our American way of life."
"It's not just about the issues we are talking about here," he said.
"They really don't like our country."
Bonilla said liberals believed the
"You know what I say to those people? 'If you
like those places so much, why don't you move there?' "
he said.
People in the crowd boys in camouflage, women pushing strollers, men in
hunting shirts with blaze-orange sleeves rose to their feet. The message,
many attendees said, had gotten through.
Charles Dunbar, 65, wore a hat that read: "God, Guns and Guts Made America
Free; Let's Keep It That Way." Dunbar, who was raised on a
"But we've still got some that want to take them away," he said.
"It burns me up."
David Adams, an NRA election coordinator and recruiter, and his wife, Kim, are
both life members. So are their two children 4-year-old Abigail and
3-month-old Reagan, who is named after the president.
He said the defiant feel of the convention reflected a shining era for
conservatives and gun rights advocates.
"We have a lot of friends on Capitol Hill. Obviously, we have a friend in
the White House," he said. "The only challenge left is to not get
complacent."
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