KBCraig wrote:Charles L. Cotton wrote:However, the Secret Service was in charge of "Hall A" during the 4 hour session,
Sez who? The Secret Service?
Yes.
KBCraig wrote:The SS has no statutory authority to do the vast majority of things they do. They simply do them, and anyone who challenges or questions them is "detained" until the event is over.
In this case, the SS took over a private event on private property because of one of the guest speakers. The NRA had every right to tell the SS to take a hike, and the SS had every right to tell the candidate he would have no protection there. The candidate would be free to ignore the SS, or he could have also told them to take a hike.
It is a sad thing that people are so accepting of the "they're from the government, and they say so" mindset.
Not intended at you, Chas., but at the idea that the SS could dictate anything to a private group meeting.
A United States Senator running for President is going to have Secret Service Protection -- period. The property isn't private property, it's government-owned, not that that would matter. The NRA could have simply decided not to invite Senator McCain, but that would not have been in the best interest of our members, gun owners in general, or the Second Amendment. This event was covered by media from all over the world, not just the U.S. Hundreds of reporters from the broadcast and print media were here and our position on our issue got tens of millions of dollars of free coverage. People who don't follow gun issues daily have seen and will continue to see a hall filled with thousands of citizens supporting the NRA and the Second Amendment. Compare this to the dozens of people shown by Obama and the Brady Campaign and the value of this event is undeniable. It helps to show the real power of the NRA and that helps our cause, our candidates and our legislation.
I have been armed and stood next to and sat with Governor Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, Texas Comptroller Susan Combs, and countless Texas Senators and Representatives many times. It would have been nice to be able to do the same with Senator McCain (as a show of trust, not as a necessity), but that's unrealistic. If the NRA had refused to allow Senator McCain to speak because of Secret Service requirements, then it would have been a giant step towards putting Senator Obama in the White House. Like it or not, the political reality is that we have to pick out fights and rebuffing the only pro-gun candidate in the race because of Secret Service procedures neither he nor we can change would be unwise.
That said, can you imagine the political disaster that we would have suffered if an armed dissident had been able to take a shot at him or killed him at an NRA convention? I always found the timing interesting when so many of the school shootings occurred close to an NRA Annual Meeting, or close to elections. I don't doubt for one second that there are nut-jobs that would love to discredit the NRA and gun owners by killing or at least taking a shot at McCain during an NRA sponsored event. That would be a publicity disaster from which we would not recover for years!
McCain is trying to mend fences because he needs our support and frankly, we need him in the White House instead of Obama. People had the option to go to the program and hear what he had to say, or choose not to if they didn't want to leave their guns and knives in their cars. Again, the NRA rejected a suggestion that we ban open carry in the rest of that very large expo center.
Chas.
