Being swamped by teaching summer school and stringing tennis rackets I have entirely neglected to post anything about my last minute trip to Louisville last month to catch the last day of the NRA Annual Meeting (NRAAM). So by way of catching up on that, here is a little light fare today on a lazy summer Sunday.
I attended the NRAAM as a member of the credentialed media. I think it is great (and, of course, very smart) of the NRA to treat bloggers as legitimate members of “the fourth estate.”
So my trip to the NRAAM paid immediate dividends as I was able to catch up with colleagues from the world of gun social media in the media room. In my last post I mentioned seeing Andrew Branca, but I also saw my fellow North Carolinian John Richardson of the No Lawyers Only Guns and Money blog, and met for the first Tamara Keel of the View from the Porch blog, Rob Morse of the Polite Society Podcast and Self-Defense Gun Stories podcast, and Kevin Creighton of the Misfires and Light Strikes blog.
“Exurban Kevin,” as he was once known (and maybe still is), did me the biggest solid by dragging me along to a meet-up he was having with Michael Bane so that I could meet the man from whom I got the idea of “Gun Culture 2.0” in the first place.
I waited patiently for my opportunity while Bane spoke to a couple of the principals at Dillon Precision. I can’t imagine how exhausting the NRA meetings must be for him because he knows everyone in gun culture, and even more people know him from his TV shows on the Outdoor Channel. But I got my opportunity eventually.
After my audience with Bane I actually hustled over to the Wilson Combat booth where I heard that Bill Wilson was signing copies of his book, Gun Guy, co-authored by Bane. I got my copy of the book signed by both Wilson and Bane, and also took in a moment captured by (professional photographer) Kevin Creighton.
From left to right in the photo: Larry Vickers, Bill Wilson, Col. Robert Brown, and Michael Bane. Definitely one of the cool parts of the NRAAM is that you never know who or what you will see there.
Gun Culture 2.0 
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