Single most neglected group of gun owners in the country. [applause] of thee are sort redheaded that child in the child in step the basement and that needs to change. Alliancehe nsa freedom is that organization. It has become increasingly more important with the explosion of the sale of suppressors, that is firearms,tegory of even though none of us would consider them firearms, that has been the one area of the firearms industry that has exploded and that is part of why i believe the Freedom Alliance is so necessary. Probably the biggest growing and fastestgrowing segment of the firearms sales market, currently. Since starting the organization last october, we have had a record of success. Nsa billsssed for pro in four separate states, and you think, what does the nsa have to do with state law . Many of the states have duplicate of laws, for instance, one of the most Amazing Things is when i was doing research before the Freedom Alliance, i found out that in the state of past tense, it was, technically illegal to possess was aa weapon, however it defense for prosecution if you were arrested for possessing it. That may be comforting to some and it has been comforting to some, obviously, because texas has more registered nsa items then probably any other state. So obviously it is comforting to some people, well, i have a defense of prosecution, but that ,eans you may be the rat rap but you will take the ride. You will have to go before a judge, you will certainly have to do with a prosecutor, if you got a brain, youll have to get an attorney, pay that attorney and figure out how to get your stuff back and hope that the judge agrees with you and this is real. This actually happened. I have a gun dealer who i work closely with who had his gun in confiscated from him, he was arrested, and a over in jail, and cost him 11 months, 14,000, he finally got his stuff back and that is in the free state of texas. So when i found out about that, that was one of the primary missions of mine, to overturn that law. And if anybody knows anything about texas legislature, it is not easy to pass anything. It is very difficult and in one session we were able to overturn that law, repeal it and replace it with the affirmative ability to own nsa items as long as they are registered. [applause] todd thank you. In tennessee, we did the exact same thing, they had a law. Billkansas, we passed a which forces the chief Law Enforcement officer to certify forms if you are not a prohibited possessor. We also made it legal to hunt with suppressors in montana. And those are all things i was able to a conflict with the help of friends and donors and folks like that who can help us get it done. We did all of that sense last october since last october. And other major question on everybodys mind is, what about repealing the nsa altogether . It was one of the most poorly books, itoups on the is so confusing. I have sat with jeff from a Different Organization and is or about this stuff than anybody, we sat in the lobby for the past few days and neither one of us can explain a lot of this. What we can explain is how it is interpreted and it is a big mess. We do have a strategy for eventually repealing the nsa altogether, so that is our primary goal. [applause] todd quite frankly, we are one of the only organizations that i am aware of that actually has that as a state is cool stated goal. Nfa should be ripped out. Auntie years ago, when you look around the country, maybe 25 tcw, ccw permits, they were not popular. We do not see them in it did not see them and dates all over the place states all over the place. And politicians believe all the lies, we were all going to shoot each other over parking spots and none of that has materialized. Today, you have democrats and Republicans Holding of their ccw permit as a to the gun movement and its a, lookout progun i am. Many of these people started in legislatures as a state senator or representative and they were able and they were part of the original passage of ccw laws, or they have been part of the process to fix them over the years. We need to do the same thing at the state level, statebystate, with legislatures to educate them about the and as a and nfa and the effect of it on the average gun owner. When i start bringing up these issues, i talked to state representatives, and i explain it all to them, the reaction is, are you kidding me . For a rifle, i need to go get photographs, pay 200, it is insane. But you can also own a pistol that is in the same configuration that is seven inches shorter than the average get it is you do not the same configuration and you do not have to do all this. This is ridiculous. That is the reaction we want. We want them to say that this is ridiculous, so that when they end up going to congress, we have a sympathetic year and they ar andnderstanding e they have an understanding of what the law is. I will quickly tell you what we are working on right now. Currently, we are working on repealing the band of hunting with suppressors. It is ridiculous. Toeurope, it is required hunt with a suppressor. We need to do that in as many states as possible. Alaska, they have a prosecution law in the books, we need to get rid of that. And we are also working on an important effort to certify to forms arethat certified and you do not have to leave your Second Amendment rights of to the discussion of local Law Enforcement. And whether or not the 412 is good or not, until we can repeal the nfa altogether. In conclusion, i want to ask you guys to support me. I am running this whole thing by myself, i am a lobbyist, i am running the whole show. I need your help. If you can help or you know somebody who is interested, the fasa. Org and wen also have a facebook page, if you look the Freedom Alliance on facebook, we are running fundraisers and raffles all the time. Right now, you can win a suppressor combo. I really appreciate you. Feel free to move to arizona. [applause] i will exercise my right as the moderator in the interest of friends at cspan, ill ask todd to do maybe two minutes on the history of nsa. So this will all go out. Todd yes, what i may have to do , i can give a quick history. Ma have to look at my buddy jeff, who is the true historian. 1934, for some reason the congress in their great wisdom thought that it would be a good idea to add a tax to owning certain items. Back then, i believe it was only machine guns. And silencers, in 1934. I am looking at just jeff and he is nodding. It was in response to, having to deal with prohibition, suppose that weres happening and they that if they put tax on these items, less people would own them and they would save the world and people would stop shooting each other with these guns. We know to this day that none of that works, prohibition and all of its forms have never worked. So that was the genesis of it, in 1934. It was expanded in 1968 through the guncontrol act when they added things to the nsa, one thing that they did add was an hesndment, the news hug amendment and what it said was sothat was in 1986 actually, i am sorry. They added the hughes amendment and that essentially said that any machine gun manufactured 1986 a particular date in could no longer be transferred between citizens, even though you are submitting fingerprints, to a background check, even though a sheriff had to sign off on it, you could not manufacture a machine gun for the transfer of private citizen to private citizen, therefore limiting the pool of machine guns and driving that price through the roof. That is where we stand today, with all these laws that regulate some of these guns. But the most ridiculous part of all of this is that there is almost no reason for any of it. It is arbitrary and makes no sense. You can have a pistol that is seven inches long, but you cannot have a rifle that has barrel. N a 16 inch for some reason, shotguns have to have a minimum of an 18 inch barrel and there is no reason to it, no logic, because you can 16 inch rifle, but you cannot have a 16 inch shotgun. You could go to jail, thousands of dollars in fines, so it is ridiculous, one of the stupidest federal laws. Ands time to rip it out throw it in the trash. [applause] todd. Nk you, and now doug ritter. Knifes our friend from writes org. Doug good morning and gun lobby. The ninth is knife lobby, you are the knife lobby and this year i bring you an important message. All knives matter. [laughter] [applause] doug repeat after me, all kni ves matter. I cannot hear you. Matter. Es thank you. We are working on that. Tools, knivesl that millions of americans use at home and at play, are also arms, protected by the Second Amendment. It is an essential right. For six years now, i have been coming to this conference to share this message, that the Second Amendment does not say firearms, it says arms. Rights is the second front in the defense of the Second Amendment. [applause] doug the good news is that people all over america are getting the message. Our success is translating into both respect and new opportunity. We are being covered by major media, including in many instances, left wing media such ,s new yorks the Village Voice and it is all positive. Rights access and our efforts to roll back the absurd antiknife laws and pass preemption. We are also introducing the Second Amendment to an entire new group of folks who have never considered the Second Amendment their own and in many cases have been antiSecond Amendment. As a result, of the tragic diedent when freddie gray in baltimore. And similar and its his instances, any number of urban centers, we are gaining more support. Remarkably, this past year primary sponsors of two of our bills were liberal democratic, because they are democrats, because they are beginning to understand that there constituents are being jailed over irrational and integrated antiquated knife laws. Just like us sitting here. [applause] doug this year, we continue to rewrite knife lot in america law in america, passing five bills in four states. That is so far. With three bills remaining in illinois and michigan and a wisconsin bill that will reveal bans, so thate there will no longer be illegal knives and wisconsin. [applause] and it is worth noting, a todd, thathat to started out as a switchblade morphing into a fullblown knife reform bill. [applause] passedn total, we have 19 pro knife bills in 14 states and six years and defeated five antiknife bills, including a machete ban in new york this year. Everyone of those victories is a win for the Second Amendment. [applause] heard yesterday, from our attorney, this week saw a critical victory in our four year old civil rights lawsuit thirdt new york city and da, over there persecution their persecution of over 60,000 new yorkers. The court of appeals for the , appealed ait ruling that nobody had in our lawsuit had standing, sending them back to lower courts. Finally, after four years. I was thrilled to hear yesterday that already attorneys into gun rights cases are planning to use this decision and their own Second Amendment lawsuits. It goes to show that knife rights really is the second front, we are all in this together. [applause] as you heard yesterday from mark, this is the new front in our fight for the Second Amendment, both at the state and federal level. Bansfeated over a dozen this year with the help of our friends at the nra, only losing in california, so, it is california, what more do i have to say . If you had told me years ago that i would be spending a significant amount of time fighting these bans, i would have told you that you are nuts. But we must not walk away from such an important battle that threatens millions of americans with millions of aliens of dollars of takings from the fed. It would happen to remove gunsands of knives and from circulation, making it illegal to sell, trade or even work on them. Knife rightsar, abhors the poaching of all species. We need to attack poaching at the source, not punish lawful owners in the United States that cannot have any of that on the poaching in africa and the eu egal traffic of ivory to africa and asia. [applause] doug successful anticoaching poaching efforts have demonstrated that we can save elephants. Investments of millions of americans will not save an elephant in africa, this is the worst time of feelgood, do bad, Government Action [applause]. Doug if you have any question, as to whether these ivory bans are good or bad, all you really need to know is that the concept was developed by the clinton foundation. And that is the Largest Organization promoting it today, the Humane Society of the american of the United States. They are raising billions of dollars, they do not give a dam about the elephants in africa, not a penny is going to those elephants, that money is used to fight gun owners. They are raising millions of american dollars, because they discovered that an orphan baby butcheredext to a mother, raises more money than a cute little panda. Next year, we expect to battle bans in over 20 states, everyone of which threatens gunowners and knife owners. [alarm bell] doug tomorrow, monday is the deadline to submit comments on the proposed ivory ban rule. Please, if you have not already ights. Orggo to knifer to submit a comment tomorrow, by midnight, in opposition to this absurd ban that will not save a single elephant in africa, but billions andricans potentially remove hundreds of knivesds of guns and from the market. Also this year, the knife owners protection act was refiled in both houses of congress. Thehouse bill sponsored by arizona representative is still in committee. Recently, the bill was passed in the senate and awaits an appropriate bill to be tacked onto pair but given how Little Congress has done these days, i will not hold my breath. By the same token, six years ago, they told us that our fifth exemption to the switchblade act would never pass, and we got that done. [applause] doug please help by encouraging your senators and your senators and congressmen to cosponsor this bill. The results think for themselves, knife rights is the second front in the defense of the Second Amendment, we are rewriting knife law in america. Join us, become a member, make a donation, help us continue this extraordinary record of success and remember, all knives matter. [applause] thanks, doug. Thank you, panelists for a good kick off of sunday morning. Great panels, great content. You can exit stage left and i will bring up my next group of speakers. Our next panel is packed with experts. It is entitled, using the media to advance gun rights. We will go in the order they are listed on the agenda, except that we will let our good friend first so that charles can i just his levels adjust his levels, that is not a euphemism. And they will each have five minutes. I will bring don up first. Maam. S, good morning. Thank, i think everybody should give a round of applause to the Second Amendment foundation for a wonderful conference. [applause] not an easy thing to pull off. I will try to keep remarks brief. We are talking about the media, have done this for a living for a long time. I think we can say easily that most of us in this room do not consider the media our friend when it comes to gun rights. That does not mean they cannot become a friend or at least a frenemy alongng the way. We need to do things to make this happen. Everybody in the media is busy, the system has changed, they are not doing the kind of work they were 20 years ago, newspapers are not what they used to be. Broadcast television has changed, all of these things, now we see a move to the internet and the way the people get news. He can do things with the media quickly, they are and their information is public, you can find email addresses in the newspaper or at the station. He can easily find Facebook Accounts or twitter handles, Something Like that. You can build a relationship, build contacts, if you use those things. When youre talking with the media or anybody really, arm yourselves with the facts. I am not trying to that is really important, because the facts are the facts, the facts favor our side. But, what happens with the media, with a lot of these things, these are not overly biased all the time, they are very ignorant of the facts when it comes to gun rights. It is incumbent upon everybody in this room to study that, bone up on the facts and have them at ready. You can do that easily now thanks to the internet. You have to do enough research to go through those things. If you do that, you will be well armed, as we say. Now, my other thing, my big passion with a this is using social media. Social media is extremely important in the battle on gun rights. Everybody, the large percentage of the population is using facebook, twitter, these are ways to do this. If you are really passionate about gun rights, you own a firearm, think about social media as another tool in your toolbox, but also is another weapon. Facebook, i want you to be passionate using social media to express your feelings about gun rights. These things, you may think, i only have about five friends, or i only have what i do is i put up a lot of cat videos. If you are doing that, you are doing it wrong. If you love cap videos, that will not cat videos, that will not advance gun rights. What happens, your number of friends, everything that you do is shareable, reach we double retweetable, so that you amplify your voice, you do not even know the effects that has. Roomeverybody in the should be doing as well, you should be using it now. If you have not been using facebook, twitter, things like this to do things about this conference, this moment, then you better get on your phones, tablets, computers and do something now. That is another way of doing this and expressing that message. Instagram, if you do not know what to do with how to write a post or send a tweet, you can pretty much take a picture. How many people take pictures with their cameras and phones . All the time. Instagram is an easy way to do that and you can link it to your facebook account, you can get all of that in one setting. It is a wonderful way to push things out. We are a very visu