#NRA National Rifle Association Annual Meeting 2017 #CIA-Protection

That’s certainly how I was raised. The feeling I get at this NRA annual meeting, very acutely and consistently, is home. I am an ammosexual. I don’t just love guns. They are an indelible part of me. I floundered at tee-ball and virtually every other sport, but from the first time my father slipped a Ruger 10/22 into my arms, shooting — and being around other shooters — just felt like things my brain had been preprogrammed to do.

Maybe they were: Two generations before me were upstate New York gunsmiths — one of my pop’s best childhood friends, in fact, is at this show, hawking for the gun-parts company that once fed my grandpop. Before we had smartphones, my family had a stack of old American Rifleman magazines, and I burned through them all. I’ve taught lefty coworkers how to shoot without flinching. My upbringing is probably pretty similar to that of many fellow gun-show people.

But this ain’t the local gun convention at the War Memorial Auditorium; this is the NRA’s show. Everything here is turned up to 11, especially the politics. Which brings us to the other meeting that feels like it’s happening this weekend.