Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center, Dallas.
The Convention Center here in Dallas is close to the south side of town, and the south side is where the Dallas PD has its headquarters. A stroll along the street in front of my hotel makes me very glad that Texas recognizes my Florida conceal and carry permit.
There wasn’t very much going on at the Meeting today, other than a few fund raisers. I did get to visit the NRA Store. I toyed with the idea of getting a “SHOOT ME FIRST” vest but it practically screamed “I AM CARRYING A WEAPON.” Instead I found these two nice SHOOT ME FIRST tee shirts that really made my day.
My favorite of the two is the “Dana Speaks For Me” shirt. Dana Loesch has become a force of nature on the right, speaking her mind on NRA TV and destroying the liberal left on a daily basis. It’s the least I can do to show my respect.
Among the people here exhibiting are the Texas Rifle Association. While not an affiliate of the NRA, it is the Texas state NRA-like organization, and they deserve great credit for moving the ball forward on gun rights in Texas. You can join the Texas State Rifle Association even if you are not a Texan. You just pay your $35 and support the work of this grass-roots organization. I joined. There website is here. Give it a look.
Of course, the Exhibit Hall does not officially open until tomorrow at 9:00 am, and at this point the vendors were still setting up. The hall was crammed with crates and boxes displaying all the latest goods of the big names in firearms. Tomorrow I intend to make a careful recon of the Exhibit Hall and report here on the new and exciting things I find there.
Naturally the NRA Store was already open and that’s where the shirts came from. They were also selling Orca coolers and cups. You may recall that Yeti, that tower of Jello that manufactures coolers for sportsmen, pulled its support from the NRA, and as a result has suffered severely in terms of sales. None of the Mom’s Demand soccer moms are going to drop $200 on a Yeti cooler (or even $45 on a Yeti coffee cup), but apparently Yeti thought it was a great idea to piss off the entirety of their customer base by disrespecting the nation’s oldest civil rights organization. This is as stupid as Delta Airlines dropping a discount program that no one used, only to suffer backlash from both the state legislature and those of us who fly to places like, well, the NRA convention.
Anyway, Orca could not be happier to be replacing those Yeti coolers with their own brand, which probably do not come with annoying virtue signaling from the company. I bought one of their cups, and it certainly is keeping my Coke Zero good and cold!
Tomorrow will be an early day. I’ll be getting up early and heading over to the NRA meeting, but tomorrow I’ll be leaving the firearm in the car. That’s because I’ll be going to the NRA-ILA Leadership Forum and listening to President Trump and Vice President Pence extol the virtues of the Second Amendment, and drive liberals crazy.
Oh, and I met a photographer from the New York Times. He was not happy that the NRA meeting looked like a big mall in a normal US city, and that there were not one-eyed, bearded men in camo looking like they just got off the FBI ten most wanted list. Since he couldn’t tell that story, he was photographing the signs on the convention center. Go figure.
The Well Armed Attorney 