HOUSTON – Down an avenue in downtown Houston, people flocked to the National Rifle Association’s annual convention this weekend to talk about guns, admire guns, buy guns, and invoke as sacred scripture. the right to bear arms of the Second Amendment; that is, pistols.
Across the avenue, people protested against guns, gun advocates, the proliferation of guns, and the impurity of easy U.S. access to weapons that facilitated two mass killings this month; that is, the murder of 10 people, all black, in a Buffalo supermarket, and the murder of 21 people, 19 of them children, at a Texas elementary school.
The avenue is called Avenida De Las Américas.
While people on one side of the avenue softened and screamed in the hot Texas sun, others climbed into the comforting coolness of the George R. Brown Convention Center. But the air-conditioned lobby was not airtight. The massacre of schoolchildren earlier this week had been in Uvalde, just 300 miles west of here. In time and distance, it was too close.
Inside, politicians spoke of “hardening” schools to a mix of NRA loyalists and newcomers curious about the cause. Outside, veteran and novice protesters waved handmade signs and photographs of downed children this week, hoping to change their minds.
Among those protesters were people like Dana Enriquez-Vontoure, an educator for more than 25 years, who stood in front of the convention center with a sign she had made hours earlier. He repeated three words five times:
“Buses, not hearses.”
“You used to leave your babies with me and they would be safe,” Ms. Enriquez-Vontoure, 46, mother of two girls. “We now live in a world where we can’t promise.”
He mocked suggestions from some gun advocates to increase school safety by arming teachers and other school officials. He said the doors of his local schools are closed during the day. To pick up your daughters, you need to scan a QR code, fill out a form, and wait for your child to come along. No weapons involved.
Just then, a criminologist and mother named Aramis Miller appeared next to Mrs. Enriquez-Vontoure. It had its own sign: “Don’t scapegoat the mentally ill” – and they were both about to join the biggest protest, which drew hundreds of people across the avenue from the convention room. They have been known since primary school.
But those who showed the right credentials could escape the heat of the furious professors and the scorching sun and enter the cool cozy of the NRA convention.
Here was 50-year-old Michael Shao, who was born in China and now lives on Long Island. members of your community. And here were three men from Chicago, all dressed in the Ukrainian colors of yellow and blue, looking for binoculars, night-vision goggles, and other items that might be useful.
Opinion: Texas school shooting
Times Opinion comment on the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
“We’re just looking around,” said Igor Terletsky, 50. “See what’s new in the market and how we can support our Ukrainian brothers and sisters.”
And here, too, was a white-haired man in a T-shirt who said, “We, the people, are angry.”
Relatives within the convention mingled amicably, their conversation interrupted only by angry, sometimes obscene chants emanating from the Avenue of the Americas, and by journalists asking for their reactions.
Tim Hickey, 45, who had come from Cleveland to promote his business, PatchOps.com, which sells “morale-boosting” patches and T-shirts, criticized the “Hate Kids!” heart that is sung at the moment. He has two children, aged 14 and 12.
“Right now he would die for one of his children,” Mr. Hickey, an old bearded Marine. “Would you? I do not think so.”
He called the UValde massacre “heartbreaking” and said many gun owners were hurt in a slightly different way than others “because we would like to be there to stop it ourselves”.
Mr. Hickey defended existing gun laws, reiterated a common return that “evil cannot be legislated” and saw no connection between the shooting of Uvalde and the NRA, including this convention.
Updated
May 28, 2022, 1:02 p.m. ET
“That’s the means,” he said. “That’s what you do.”
Beside her was Kat Munoz, 34, of Novi, Michigan, who described herself as a survivor of domestic violence and a social media “influencer” for women’s self-defense. Her therapy dog, a Belgian Malinois named Millie, sat at her feet.
Mrs. Muñoz is the mother of two children, aged 11 and 9. He also expressed deep sadness for Uvalde. He also defended the country’s gun laws and the NRA. He said that as far as he knew, none of those responsible for the mass shootings were members of the NRA. And, he said, “Weapons laws don’t change psychopaths from being psychopaths.”
He went to find a place where Millie could meet her needs, with the intention of staying away from the protesters gathered across the street. Later, while she was in line to hear former President Donald J. Trump address the convention, Ms. Muñoz sent a text message that “recent events” had made him wonder if “we could commit to raising the age to buy a firearm or stricter background checks on AR-15 years.” style of weapon used by the 18-year-old gunman in Uvalde and the 18-year-old accused gunman in Buffalo.
“If this is what it takes to not get rid of our rights altogether, I would not oppose that if it is absolutely necessary,” he wrote.
The Buffalo and Uvalde massacres, which join Pittsburgh, Charleston, Parkland, Sandy Hook and other places too many to name here, had other effects on the NRA celebration this year.
In the cavernous room outside the convention center’s exhibition area, an electronic sign continued to promote a Saturday night music event called “NRA’s Grand Ole Night of Freedom,” with Lee Greenwood considered ” the most recognized patriot in America “; Don McLean, of American Pie fame; and Larry Gatlin, the country and gospel singer. Tickets: $ 25.
But all three left last week. Mr. McLean told Fox News that acting would be “disrespectful.” Mr. Gatlin told CNN that “it would have been a bit of a class” for the NRA to cancel the convention and instead have a moment of prayer or silence.
There was another notable absence at one end of the room, where, according to the NRA’s exhibitor map, a large space had been set aside for Georgia firearms company Daniel Defense, the maker. of a man-bought weapon that killed 19 schoolchildren last year. Uvalde. Instead, the space was occupied by a few tables and a popcorn machine.
But the many exhibitors who showed up did their best to provide a joyful, albeit temporary, separation from the realities that awaited just outside the doors. There was something for every taste, from the dedicated hunter to the anxious survival, to those looking for costumes that could hide a gun in a fashionable way.
Here were knives, pistols and rifles, artfully exposed and available for storage. At the stand of a firearms manufacturer, a salesman urged a journalist to pick up a short-barreled rifle with a foldable material on the side. “Touch it! Feel it!” he said seductively. “It won’t bite.”
Here were handheld devices to pick up your spent cartridges, sleek vaults to store your weapons, and alligator hunting promotions. A stand for the NRA cigar club. A stand for a wireless provider that promotes Christian conservatism. A long line for some “Smooth Muffler” or anything else that was being prepared at the Black Rifle Coffee Company.
As it progressed Friday, members of the NRA began to drop the protective bubble from the convention center. They knew that the showroom would open early on Saturday morning, offering the latest in Kalashnikovs and Rugers and Glocks, and that on Sunday, the last day of the convention, many would gather in the great ballroom for breakfast with a prayer on the menu.
With the heat of Friday evening, some congressmen stood by his side of the avenue, smoking cigarettes, watching the protests with contempt, occasionally taking selfies with the angry crowd as a backdrop. Several said they believed these protesters also had their rights.
Others ventured across the two lanes of the road, not to participate in the alleged charges that saved no one, including the older veterans, but to pick up their cars or drive to their hotels. Banners passed saying “Enough is enough” and “Weapons are the death of the United States” and “Am I next?” – this cover by a girl barely taller than the gates of the barrier that control the crowd, on which were children’s clothes stained with red blood.
Some of the NRA members, who were carrying bags of convention clothing, smiled and waved as they passed. Others, however, kept their eyes fixed on the warm pavement.