Gun rights advocates and activists from across the country will gather this weekend in Chicago for the 33rd annual Gun Rights Policy Conference, timed perfectly to energize the Second Amendment faithful in preparation for the November midterm elections.
Co-sponsored by the Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the GRPC typically draws representatives from the major national and state-level gun rights organizations from Washington to Florida. This year’s event, according to SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb, has already surpassed every other in terms of pre-registrations. The event typically draws hundreds of activists.
They will participate in panel discussions and listen to presentations from a variety of speakers ranging from local to nationally-known gun rights experts. The agenda will include reports on state and federal affairs, current court cases, and the upcoming elections.
A highlight of this year’s event will be the appearance of Kyle Kashuv, a student survivor of the Parkland, Florida high school shooting earlier this year. He is an outspoken advocate of Second Amendment rights versus the gun control agenda that other students at the school promoted this past spring with protest marches in several cities.
Another special guest will be former Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling.
Both Kashuv and Schilling are scheduled to speak during the annual awards luncheon on Saturday.
The Sept. 21-23 event will convene at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare near the airport. It will be the third visit to the Windy City for GRPC since the landmark 2010 Supreme Court ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago nullified that city’s handgun ban. It has been at the same hotel all three times.
One important aspect of the midterm elections is the amount of money that gun prohibition lobbying groups are spending to influence races in several states. As reported earlier, the Washington Post published a story about the millions of dollars being spent on elections in at least four key states – Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico – to elect Democrats, including governorships in Nevada and New Mexico.
