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What an incredible week!! I was busy from Tuesday through yesterday (Monday) and now I need to play catch-up. I need to update the Bill Status Report and work on some of my cases with deadlines coming up. Sorry for letting the Bill Status Report get behind, but it couldn't be helped.

The 2013 NRA "convention" was a huge success! We set a new record for every category and by a very wide margin. When the NRA was in Houston in 2005, we set a new attendance and money record. Every year thereafter saw a new record set in one or more categories. Houston 2013 will never be matched, much less exceeded, until we come back to Texas (Dallas) in 2018 or thereabout. We will definitely be back in Houston as soon as we can, but that won't be before 2019 at the earliest.

Attendance was 86,230 people, 14,000 higher than last year. We sold $1.3 in memberships (new and upgrades) and every fundraising event was a new record. If I remember correctly, the Foundation Dinner (FONRA) brought in over $800,000 and the women's event also brought in records numbers (I can't recall how much). The ILA event was huge as well. Every single monetary category was up between 50% and 85%!

Thank you Houston!! Not only was this year a huge success, it sent a strong message to politicians everywhere, including Washington. Ironically, we were in the NRA Members' Meeting and other meetings while "Gun Bill Saturday" was going on. Not being able to follow the floor debates was killing me, but it was appropriate for the Texas House to be passing pro-gun bills while a record crowd was at the NRA Convention.

I also want to thank everyone who has been answering our calls-to-action; you have made a big difference. I've talked to folks in Austin and they are impressed (in some cases dismayed) that we can coordinate calls, faxes and emails so effectively and trigger them at the most effective time. I've tried not to duplicate NRA or TSRA calls too much. I may sound like the 2013 session is over, but it most certainly isn't. When it is, I'll give a report and within 30 days thereafter, I hope to be able to lay out my plan for TFC activities in the off season, next year's elections, and the 2015 Texas Legislative Session. If we can motivate Texans to get involved like never before, we can accomplish the vast majority of our goals. It looks like this session will be better than I expected, but still well short of what we should have accomplished with a huge majority in the House. This presumes we don't have any bad surprises between now and the end of the session.

Chas.