Texas makes no secret of its preoccupation with size. “Everything is bigger in Texas,” goes the state motto.
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This weekend, inside the cavernous Kay Bailey Hutchison convention center in Dallas[2], something predictably big is happening: the National Rifle Association Annual Meetings and Exhibits.
Visitors arriving on Friday were greeted by imposing vinyl banners featuring headshots of NRA[3] notables – Wayne LaPierre, Chris Cox and Dana Loesch. The posters also revealed the theme for the group’s 147th summit: “A show of strength for second amendment freedom.”
The NRA’s framing of its convention in terms of strength in numbers – it expected 80,000 “freedom-loving patriots” to attend, it said – came in the face of increased activism by its opponents. Since the last NRA gathering, the deadliest shooting in modern American history saw 58 people killed in Las Vegas in October. That was followed in November by 26 deaths in a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. The February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 students and educators were killed, touched off a national youth-led movement advocates hope will turn the tide in favor of tighter gun control.
Your second amendment rights are under siege. But they will never ever be under siege as long as I’m your president
Donald Trump
The Florida school massacre galvanized criticism of the NRA and its lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action. Calls for a boycott of the NRA and its corporate partners led businesses – from hotel chains and car-rental companies to major retailers and airlines – to sever relationships and rescind benefits once
