May 25 - May 31, 1995
B y T o m D a n e h y
THE NATIONAL RIFLE Association, the lobbying group which boasts
the world's largest collection of living politicians' testicles,
held its annual testosterone-fest and phallic display in Phoenix
last weekend. More than 25,000 gun enthusiasts and self-proclaimed
Constitutional experts attended the weekend festivities, where
they ogled the latest hardware, listened to the guardedly inflammatory 
rhetoric of the group's leadership and generally tiptoed through
a mine field of issues and (largely self-generated) bad publicity
that may finally have the NRA at risk of losing its veneer of
invulnerability.
Indeed, so widespread is the distaste for what is falling out
of the mouths of the NRA's leaders and so plentiful are the tripwires
left lying about, much of the membership spent the weekend shuffling
about, heads down, being careful not to step on anything. And
believe me, with both Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers now gone,
it's just no fun any more watching white people dance.
For its part, the NRA publicly proclaims itself to be robust,
flush with new funds following its infamous "jackbooted thugs"
letter and forever steadfast in its opposition to all things regulatory
when it comes to weaponry. And while no one expects the current
wave of public disgust to capsize the Good Ship Gun Nut, it would
probably be eminently pleasant to watch the reactions of these
people who have never even had to ride out so much as a mere ripple
before.
USUALLY, JEFF SMITH, our in-house Clear and Present Danger to
most things high and mighty, would be perfectly competent to cover
an event of such magnitude by himself. Unfortunately, it turns
out that El Jefe is one of them. A card-carrying, gun-toting...one
of them.
In fact, Jeff is the chairman of the Left-Wing Gun Nuts Posse.
They held their meeting the other day in a telephone booth.
So it fell to me to go to the Valley of the Sun to check things
out--Kind of an independent observer, if you will. I was accompanied
by Emil Franzi (see accompanying story), who, unlike Jeff, is
a generic right-wing gun nut and is therefore unlikely to say
anything surprising...or cogent, for that matter.
The day before I went, a friend of mine named Randy suggested
that I go up there with an open mind. So, that night I went through
my extensive video library, most of which I compiled on those
weekends where they give you free HBO and then try to sign you
up, and got out Blazing Saddles. I figured if I was going
to the kingdom of the politically incorrect, I might as well bone
up on the language.
I especially liked the part where the railroad workers offered
to help save the town of Rock Ridge in exchange for the opportunity
to homestead some land and live in peace. After some discussion,
the mayor steps forward and says, "We'll take the niggers
and the chinks, but no Irish!"
After that, I figured I was ready. (Oh yeah, in a delicious bit
of irony, the drunken gunslinger played by Gene Wilder is known
as The Waco Kid.)
AS I DROVE into Phoenix, past the countless subdivisions which
are leapfrogging out into the desert, I remembered an episode
of The New Twilight Zone (believe me, if you watch enough
TV, there's an analogous reference for just about anything you'll
ever encounter) that concerned an accidental nuclear detonation
near an American city, after which officials built a dome over
the entire devastated area, trapping the survivors and the radiation 
inside.
It eventually became known as the Peace Dome, serving as a deterrent
to nuclear proliferation.
With 25,000 NRA people in Phoenix (plus all the Phoenix people
in Phoenix), I wondered how hard it would be to build a dome over
that place. I dismissed the idea, mostly because that would mean
trapping Charles Barkley and the Phoenix Suns in there. Of course,
in retrospect, after they blew that series to Houston...oh well.
As we neared the Phoenix Civic Plaza, we had to run a gauntlet
of gun protesters who were shouting at the delegates and posing
for the media. One placard-carrying woman was in a heated discussion
with a guy who was dressed like the leather biker in the Village
People.
After they finished their argument and he moved on, I asked her
if she really thought she could change somebody's mind. I mean,
it's like saying, "Hey Rabbi, let's go have some pork chops."
Although, in that case, we're only talking about somebody's lifelong
religion, not something important like guns.
FRANZI AND I walked in, got our media stuff, then went into a
room where they were selling tickets to allow people to shoot
air rifles and pistols. Franzi, a lifelong shooter awash in the
testosterone-laced atmosphere, challenged me to shoot something.
Suffice it to say I hit the target with my first shot.
However, when I held the gun, I didn't feel a stirring in my
loins, I didn't feel any more patriotic than usual, and I didn't
have a fantasy about shouting, "Eat lead, you crack-ridden
urban terrorist!" to a guy wearing a ski mask, climbing through
my window with one eye on my valuables and the other on my wife's
thighs.
But I did have the feeling that my next child would be a masculine
child (Luca Brasi to Don Corleone, The Godfather). I just
hope it's a boy. 
WE SPLIT UP, Franzi to schmooze and try to line up work in the
upcoming elections, me to find a TV from which to watch the Suns
game and then to work on my ultimate challenge. I wanted to find
a black person who is an NRA member. I thought maybe Charlie Pride
or somebody would be there.
Wouldn't you know it, one came to me. Life's funny that way sometimes.
I'm watching the game in the media room and a voice comes from
behind, asking the score. I turn around and it's Roy Innis, former
head of the Congress of Racial Equality and the guy best known
for starting the race riot on Geraldo, the one that left
the host with a broken nose.
Ever subtle, I said, "Dang, what would a dude like you be
in a group like this for?" syntax be damned.
He told me he had two sons killed by guns, a double tragedy which
many people might think would send him toward Handgun Control,
but instead prompted him to join the NRA.
"It's the good people in this country that are hurt by gun
laws," Innis said. "My second son was gunned down in
New York City, which is supposed to have the strictest gun laws
in America. The only people who don't have guns there are the
good people."
He went on to talk about how there is a war to take away the
good people's guns in America (even though he had just told me
that the good people don't have guns); that President Clinton
was using the Oklahoma City bombing just like Hitler had used
the Reichstag fire, to tighten down on political dissent; he referred
to Michael Dukakis as a "cocksucker"; mentioned that
he was a lifelong Democrat and then bragged how "we"
took Congress last year and "we" are going to take the
White House next year.
Next time, I'm looking for an Asian.
GRAHAM COUNTY SHERIFF Richard Mack was there, receiving an award
as Law Enforcement Officer of the Year, mostly because he refused
to uphold the law. Go figure.
I wondered if maybe it was one of those Harvard Hasty Pudding
things where the award is decidedly tongue-in-cheek. So I asked
several people. Ninety-two percent had never heard of Hasty Pudding,
while 78 percent didn't recognize the name "Harvard."
A majority, however, could identify pudding.
He was also there touting his new book, From My Cold Dead
Fingers, which I thought was some sort of self-contained necrophilia
thing, but turns out to be a popular Gun Nut saying. Alas, the
book isn't destined for the bestseller list, mostly because they
left out pictures with which to attract their target audience,
so to speak.
Mack was surrounded by a crowd of adoring fans when I saw him.
I asked a woman standing in the throng, "Isn't that Dick
Mack?"
"That's Sheriff Mack," she said, "but people call
him Richard."
"You wanna bet?"
FORMER WASHINGTON STATE representative Tom Foley announced that
he, like former President George Bush, would be resigning from
the National Rifle Association because the group is becoming increasingly
strident and partisan.
Foley, who last November became the first standing Speaker of
the House to be voted out of office since the Civil War, is probably
a bit off on his timing. This is like the guy who played Eb on
Green Acres asking to be dropped from the Screen Actors
Guild.
I WANDERED OVER into the meeting hall, where top gun Wayne LaPierre
was giving a rousing speech. Then they announced the winners of
some election. Top vote-getter was Tucson attorney Sandy Froman,
who is much too nice to be a lawyer and much too level-headed
to be a gun nut. I hate those gray-area things.
Other winners included rocker Ted Nugent, who sold a record as
recently as 1978, and movie director John Milius, who made Red
Dawn, about a communist invasion of America that is fought
off by a bunch of high school kids with their daddy's arsenal.
Before the communist threat turned out to be nothing and shriveled
away, Red Dawn was the ultimate gun nut's wet dream.
Now that communism is gone and the government has been installed
as the new bogeyman, the NRA's new favorite director is probably
Costa-Gavras.
THERE WAS A big exhibition hall full of booths and displays. Mostly
it was full of men who would look through the gunsights of new
weapons and get all glassy-eyed.
I did overhear two exhibitors talking back and forth about putting
on gun shows in other cities. One guy bragged to the other, "Hey,
I've got connections. I could get us a big-name star (to appear).
I could get Robert Stack."
Jeez, I thought, for another ten bucks, you could get McLean
Stevenson.
A FEW YEARS back, during the flag-burning controversy, I went
around and asked people to tell me how the stars are arranged
on the flag. Not one person could do so, including a state senator
who was protesting the Supreme Court decision.
This time, amid a room full of Constitutional experts, I decided
to ask people how many amendments there are to the Constitution.
You guessed it, nobody got it right (there are 27), including
NRA rising star Tanya Metaksa. Most of those folks know there's
a Second Amendment, but on the rest of them they're kinda shaky.
I ALSO TRIED to get somebody to talk about the NRA's alleged financial
trouble, but I got no takers. Rumor has it there's serious trouble,
much of it due to fund-raising efforts that cost more than they
bring in. This is a story to keep an eye on.
WAYNE LAPIERRE PUT his foot back in his mouth when he said that
next year, "We're going to clean Clinton's clock."
When pressed on the statement, he claimed it was an innocent
sports term used by little kids that means (and I quote) "to
use the democratic process to try and elect someone else in 1996."
I can just hear Phoenix Cardinals coach Buddy Ryan at halftime.
"Come on, you jerks. Let's get out there and use the democratic
process to elect someone else in 1996."
THE TRIP WASN'T a total loss. We had Popeye's chicken for dinner.
B y E m i l F r a n z i
MOST NATIONAL PRESS about the National Rifle Association bares
little resemblance to reality. For example, you find out very
little from watching NBC News. Last week, Tom Brokaw gave us one
Bill Clinton vs. NRA story in which Clinton and some overweight
Fraternal Order of Police type got at least 30 seconds each to
trash away, while the NRA's Wayne LaPierre got a big five seconds
back. Even my usually moderate mother-in- law said that wasn't
fair.
And I'm not being a paranoid gun nut here--I realize one should
never attribute to conspiracy what is usually the product of arrogance,
bigotry, elitism, ineptitude and shallowness. The media don't
cover the NRA fairly or well simply because they don't cover anything
fairly or well.
So I went to the recent NRA convention in Phoenix partly to see
if all this bad press has had any effect on my fellow members,
but mainly to check out all the neat guns and stuff.
The Tucson Weekly staff covering last weekend's convention
conveniently demonstrates how divided Americans are on the guns/feds/cops
issue. And our example shows it isn't a left vs. right thing,
either. For the pro-gun right, there was me; for the pro-gun left,
Jeff Smith; for the anti-gun left, Tom Danehy. And then there
was our bright and highly individualistic photographer, Maria
Nasif, who argued more with Tom than with me on our way up to
Phoenix. The only viewpoint missing was a gun control conservative,
like Sarah Brady's new best friend, Congressman Henry Hyde.
We arrived at the Phoenix Civic Plaza late in the morning and
promptly observed there were 28 demonstrators outside, four of
whom were with my old outfit, the Arizona Libertarian Party. They
were complaining the NRA was too soft on official jackbooted thugs
besides those from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms (BATF). Nice to meet folks who make me look moderate.
The Arizona Daily Star, in an otherwise fair story by Doug
Kreutz, chose to run one picture--of a demonstrator.
Our first stop after acquiring press badges was at an air-gun
shooting gallery. Tom said he'd never shot a gun; he found out
it's fun. That's just one of many shooting sports the NRA promotes,
Tommy.
Inside the main hall were several thousand normal-looking folks,
mostly white, but with a reasonable smattering of minorities.
Also, there seemed to be a whole lot of females there on their
own--not because their husbands dragged them. Tom didn't believe
that Roy Innis, founder of the Congress of Racial Equality, is
an elected NRA board member. Although Tom kept threatening to
scalp a ticket for the Suns game across the street and split,
he caught up to Innis later.
The exhibit hall was packed with everything from Winchester and
Colt displays down to an outfit called The Dayton-Traister Company
of Oak Harbor, Washington. They have 19th century dies made from
original Hawken rifles. Most of the replicas made today are lightweight,
but Dayton-Traister's .54-caliber sucker weighs in at 11 1/2 pounds.
Hey, Father's Day is coming up, kids, and my birthday is in July.
Only $2,000.
Two of my other favorites were there--Shiloh Sharps and Dixie
Gun Works. Dixie is Tennessee's other shrine--besides the
Jack Daniels distillery, that is. They started distributing copies
of Civil War era firearms, mostly made in Italy, in the '50s.
By now they've knocked out more copies than there ever were originals.
And one of those Sharps repros should have been nominated for
best supporting actor in Quigley Down Under, an otherwise
forgettable Mel Gibson movie in which the hero, a sharpshooter,
manages to bag the bad guy from practically the other side of
the Outback. They start at about $800.
But enough fun--on to the politics:
I saw little sign of rebellion--despite the recent urgings of
some NRA foes that members repudiate the organization's leadership.
And I was told that as a result of that recent "jackbooted
thugs" remark, new memberships are exceeding quitters about
8 to l.
Unlike all those phony beltway groups that collect your dues
and then tell you what they think, the NRA's board of directors
is elected by the members each year.
What's refreshing about these guys is they don't give a rat's
ass about what the establishment media say about them. In fact,
they thrive on the abuse. A couple times I got funny looks at
my media pass, and one smiling lady even made the sign of the
cross. I suspect I may have been the only person there carrying
a press pass who was also credentialed to vote.
Floor debates were as boring as floor debates are in other groups,
but one item stood out. There was an attempt to censure one former
board member for constantly attacking current NRA positions. The
censure motion was ruled out of order because the bylaws don't
allow for censures without a hearing. Don't you just love due
process?
Speaking against the principle of censuring in general was that
grand old war horse and genuine American hero, Joe Foss. The 80-year-old
Foss earned the Medal of Honor as a Marine fighter pilot on Guadalcanal
by bagging 26 Japanese planes, 23 of them the hard way--with a
Grumman Wildcat. He also helped form--and rose to general in--the
South Dakota Air National Guard, did two terms as governor of
that state, and became the head of the now-defunct American Football
League. He lives in Phoenix.
Old Joe said that while he'd spent plenty of time defending the
Second Amendment (he was twice NRA president in the '80s), he
kinda liked the rest of the Constitution, too. And he added the
First Amendment ought to apply to the NRA, and the organization
was big and strong enough to let some members run off at the mouth,
even though they didn't have much support.
Foss is one of a group of Arizonans on the 76-member board, which
includes Tucson attorney Sandy Froman. She led the ticket nationwide
when she ran three years ago, and led it again this time. Finishing
in this year's top seven were four other women.
Certain politicians and lazy media have shamelessly attempted
to create guilt by association by tying the NRA to militias, much
in the same way Joe McCarthy tried to tie liberal Democrats to
communism in the '50s. I couldn't find anybody on the floor who
disagreed with LaPierre's description of militia bozos as "paranoid
hatemongers."
Which may have disappointed Danehy. At one point he said, "I
think these people are scary." What probably scared him most
was their utter normalcy.
Currently, the biggest real flap is over the NRA's future relationship
with law enforcement, particularly at the federal level. For years
the NRA has been an auxiliary to many law enforcement agencies,
supplying everything from terminology to weapons training. Recent
conflicts with the BATF (an agency many cops dislike), and the
fact that Clinton is president, is putting an end to that. Apparently
nobody noticed that the first time an NRA leader used the expression
"jackbooted thugs" about the BATF it was a Democratic
Congressman, John Dingell of Michigan, and it happened in 1983.
What's a helluva role reversal is that the NRA has, de facto,
called for a federal civilian police review board to check up
on allegations of police brutality by federal agencies. And some
liberals are screaming about it and trying to pose as law-and-order
types who love those folks in uniform, even when they dress like
ninjas. Maybe we could throw in the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, the Border Patrol and others the left regularly attacks.
We headed home late in the afternoon. Tom stopped for some Popeye's
chicken, and Maria and I read over a pamphlet he'd acquired. It
was one of those far-out conspiracy jobs about the New World Order,
the Jewish bankers, the inferiority of certain races and why we
all need our guns to fight off the United Nations troops.
I asked Tom where he'd picked it up, and he said from a guy hanging
around outside the perimeter of the convention. Meaning the NRA
wouldn't let the scumbag in.
Which should tell you the difference between normal pro-gun folks
and the maniacs ignorant media and cynical politicians try to
portray us NRA types as being.
B y J e f f S m i t h
THE MAIN THING was, I couldn't find the right T-shirt.
Liza, my baby girl, got all excited when I told her I was running
up to Phoenix for the NRA convention. Kids are like that: they
get to jumping around and clapping their hands and saying "Oh
goody, goody, I'm going to get a sussie." Every time I cross
a county line somebody wants me to bring back a surprise. Liza
in particular likes little sussies from foreign ports. Maybe next
year when she turns 26 she'll outgrow it.
Meanwhile my mission, should I choose to accept it, is to find
this particular T-shirt for Liza. I keep this in the present
tense, conditional mood, because they didn't have what Liza wants
at the NRA convention, and I've still got to track it down somewhere.
Understand this: Liza adores NRA memorabilia. She's got an NRA
sticker on the tailgate of her station wagon, and the remains
of an old bumper sticker that says, "Nobody ever raped a
.38."
What she wanted in a T-shirt was one of those that warns, "They'll
take my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers."
She thought finding one at the national convention of the NRA
would be a dead cert. I had my mind on other things and didn't
really think much about it. On sober reflection, I should have
realized it was a long shot.
Even without the shitstorm of public controversy that followed
Wayne LaPierre's "jackbooted thugs" letter that immediately 
preceded the convention in Phoenix, today's NRA takes pains not
to be as blood-and-guts zealous as the mainstream news media and
the White House tend to portray it. In fact, if you were to meander
into the convention unaware, and didn't immediately venture into
the main hall where the vendors' displays were set up, you wouldn't
know the NRA from the PTA. Preconceived notions about the organization
and its membership tend to get contradicted--not in shocking,
dramatic ways, but subtly. It's not, for instance, like you go
in expecting everybody to be wearing camouflage and sporting ominous
bulges under their jackets only to find them all in black tie
and patent leather pumps, it's more a matter of being normal and
non-descript.
What struck me next was the high percentage of women in the crowd.
But I was conditioned to being on the alert for women, since it
was one specific woman I was trying to find and I had no idea
what she looked like. Her name is Sandy Froman and she's a lawyer
from Tucson, a friend of my friends Art and Katherine Jacobsen.
She's also a member of the NRA board. This election and last,
she was the top vote-getter of all that 75-member body. How about
that?
Everybody I asked seemed to know Sandy, and each provided me
with enough descriptive data that I could have drawn a composite
sketch and come up with someone who looked like either Hillary
Rodham Clinton or John Doe No. 2 from the Oklahoma City bombing.
No wonder these things never work. When I finally caught up with
Sandy she looked like neither, and neither was she wearing what
she'd been described in earlier in the day.
Funny, she doesn't look like a gun nut. But then they
never do. Then again, most of them aren't. Nuts, I mean.
We sat over coffee and talked about motorcycles and politics
and mutual friends, and then another board member, some gentleman
by the name of Nathan or something, begged our indulgence to interrupt,
and they discussed a little NRA business. I feigned disinterest
and hung on every word, none of which had anything to do with
guns or head shots or political coups or any of that G. Gordon
Liddy stuff. It was all about computer software and consensus-building.
They reminded me of a couple of ACLU board members I had listened
in on, during a similar convention many years ago.
In fact that was the over-riding impression I had of the convention,
any time and anywhere outside the main hall, where the firearms
manufacturers and trade organizations had their displays for the
visiting NRA members and the general public. Most of the color
commentators and cameramen were in the vendors' hall while the
"serious" journalists scribbled notes at the back of
the auditorium where the NRA speeches were being delivered. But
behind the scenes, and in the smaller meeting rooms where the
various committees were holding their annual eyebrow-to-eyebrow
think sessions, the tone was one of quiet determination. Serious
talk was going on, over serious issues. Civil rights issues.
I kept thinking back to that earlier ACLU event, and the parallels
held up. I thought of the '60s, of the Democratic National Convention
in Chicago, and a police riot when people were clubbed and kicked
and thrown in paddy wagons for exercising their First Amendment
rights, of Kent State when college kids died for the same offense.
I remembered how the Nixon Administration systematically spied
on and sought to silence dissidents. The rhetoric of both sides
of that dispute was no less heated and inflammatory than the debate
today between the White House and the NRA, with the news media
not quite in the middle.
This time out the dissidents tend to come from the political
right, the forces of government control from the left, and the
media tend toward the side of state versus individual liberty.
Funny how personal freedom seems to be a matter of hardware rather
than principle to some minds. If it's the right to free speech,
free press and freedom of religion, high-minded theorists are
always on your side. If it seems to come down to carrying a pistol
or a hunting rifle, those same high-minded thinkers dismiss it
as blood lust.
Lost in the shouting are the concepts of personal freedom and
individual responsibility. Until I shout "fire" in a
crowded theater or knowingly libel an innocent man, government
shall not intrude upon my freedom of expression. Why then, so
long as I do not shoot someone without just cause, or attempt
to overthrow my government by force of arms, should that government
prevent me from keeping and bearing arms?
The possibility that I might do something illegal with
a firearm simply is not justification, either on Constitutional
grounds or those of simple justice and common sense, to interfere
with the freedom that is the right and natural order of things.
Same as with speech, assembly...thought.
And behind the hoopla and the media swarm, the outdoor enthusiasts
and hunters and target shooters and just plain curious, this was
the serious work and concern that the NRA officers, board members
and staff came to Phoenix to talk about.
Meanwhile, of course, there was Louise Mandrell to sing for her
supper, and the suppers of God knows how many suffering NRA members,
at Rawhide, way the hell and gone out North Scottsdale Road on
Friday night. If you've never been to Rawhide, go there once.
Go there at about 6 a.m. on a weekday, when there aren't more
than a few hundred lost or strayed last night's customers and
crew hanging around. Any other time there will be thousands, cheek
to cheek on wooden benches at picnic tables, tucking away T-bones
and beans and sourdough bread. It's like L'il Abner's, multiplied
by a thousand.
Sandy Froman and I drove out there in my pickup, skipping the
fleet of tour buses that ferried the NRA membership to site. We
found the fleet of buses parked as near the front gate at the
packed parking lot would allow. They were about a half-mile from
the door and there wasn't room to squeeze in a bicycle between
there and the door. We gave Louise and the T-bones a pass and
kept on talking about civil rights issues.
It's tough enough having The New York Times, The Arizona
Daily Star, Bill Clinton and Diane Feinstein on your ass,
without having to stand in line with 22,000 other sufferers to
wait for a lukewarm piece of meat.
May 25 - May 31, 1995
