I Sing of Arms and Men (But Mostly Men)

The 2015 NRA Annual Meeting

April 10-12

Nashville, TN

The Music City Center

      I was excited for this.  The NRA’s big event coming to my hometown.  Unfortunately, because I had to work Friday night, I could not attend all the speeches by the presidential hopefuls.  I had to go in on Saturday almost immediately after pulling a 12-hour night shift at work.  As a result I committed the sin of drinking three Monsters in one day.

     Knowing that parking would be scarce, I parked at LP Field and took the shuttle bus that was hired to take people back and forth to convention.  I will point out that the Nashville Convention Center, though impressively big, is a phenomenally ugly building.  Nothing says clueless postmodernism like putting something that vaguely resembles a neckless guitar on a Nashville-based building.  Admission was free for NRA members, and they were fortunately able to find me in the system based on the ID number on my temporary membership card (I couldn’t find my real one).

      The exhibition hall was absolutely packed.  It was genuinely hard to navigate around.  For someone as tall as I was, it was especially annoying because my walking pace is so much faster than everyone else'.  The weather, combined with this dense mass of humanity, made me regret wearing a suit.  I had to call my mom’s cell phone to meet with her in there.  It took some time to meet up, as the place was very crowded.  Meeting with my mom was a bit awkward because it prevented us from seeing the booths we wanted to see ourselves, so we separated.

The guy on the left looked kinda funny, too.

     The Hall consisted mostly of gun companies’ booths, and I got to handle a few deactivated guns.  The most anticipated gun was probably the Glock 43, which didn’t feel too special.  I’ll have to fire it at a range to truly get a feel for it.  I don’t like the short grip, even if it is a good-looking gun.  I also handled a Kahr CW9, which I have fired before.  I’m leaning toward that as a potential CCW weapon.  I looks bland, but it feels great and has the features I'm looking for.  At the FN booth I took a look at the Five-seveN, PS90, F2000, SCAR-L and SCAR-H.  I kind of wish I got some pictures of myself looking like a Die Hard villain, but I didn’t.  At the Kel-Tec booth I handled the KSG, the RDB and the PMR-30.  The third seems like a nice fun gun.  The Walther PPQ seems to have great ergonomics, but I wish the magazine was a little bigger.  The Sig P320 looks great, but doesn’t feel as good in the hand as the P226. 

All aboard the Magpul Express!

      Finally I looked at the Beretta booth.  I took a look at the ARX 100, which seems like a nice gun, as does the PX4 Storm.  The 92FS is my favorite handgun, which is why I’m not too fond of the new M9A3.  While most people will find the thinner grip more comfortable, which is a good thing for a service pistol, it didn’t fill my hand as well as the 92’s rounder butt.  I’m sure the A3 will be a fine service pistol, but I simply don’t like this skinny-**sed, big chinned, ugly-camo-colored version of the sexiest semi-auto ever made.  I regret not taking a look at their shotguns.    

     There were a couple people signing autographs at the time.  The Gunny’s line was unsurprisingly long, and I wasn’t that big of a fan of Full Metal Jacket to brave it.  I also unfortunately missed an opportunity to get Colion Noir’s autograph.  I would have also liked to bump into a couple National Review writers who were reportedly there, but there was no way with that massive crowd.  So long story short, I didn’t meet anyone famous.  I didn’t even get to see Hickock45.

     After I was done with the exhibition hall, I got some delicious fried cinnamon cashews and hot chicken.  I looked at the schedule to see if there were any panels to attend.  The only one that looked remotely interesting was the one about training police dogs.  Unfortunately, it was too late, and I had to catch the bus back to my car in time for church.  I did see a pair of Belgian Malinois pass through and there was a very big, pretty and friendly Anatolian Shepherd.  

 I’ve always found it funny that the best part of any gun show is when someone brings a dog.  The rooms in the convention center were hard to find, thanks to maps which unhelpfully switched the views and scale for each floor.  I didn’t see anything of interest in the store, and the air gun range was not terribly interesting to someone who has frequently shot real guns.  Eager to scout the Convention Center before leaving for Mass, I was becoming increasingly frustrated by nearly insurmountable crowd.  I would have had no such complaint about the pathetic protest set up by the hoplophobes.  I’m glad there were so many people showing support for the Second Amendment, but the crowd made the Annual Meeting a bit of a pain in the butt.  I decided not to attend on Sunday.

     After riding and driving back home, I was exhausted.  Despite my sleepiness, I went to Mass and picked up some Mexican food on the way back.  After more than 24 hours awake, I went to bed for a much needed 24 hours of sleep.