Top US gun group opens meet in combative mood

The National Rifle Association opened its annual convention in combative style, positioning itself as champion of American freedoms in the face of growing pressure for tougher gun laws. More than 70,000 members of the nation's premier gun rights organization have flocked to Texas for the three-day gathering, hard on the heels of the defeat of new federal gun laws in the US Senate. It also comes days after the accidental shooting death in Kentucky of a two-year-old at the hands of her five-year-old brother with a .22 caliber rifle marketed by Crickett to children with the slogan "My First Rifle." The shooting triggered outrage in the United States, still reeling from the shooting in December of 20 small children and six adults and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. A six-year-old shot and seriously wounded his four-year-old friend in New Jersey with a shot to the head in early April. Just two days earlier, a four-year-old killed a woman during a family barbecue in Tennessee. The NRA is planning to host a youth day on Sunday during the annual convention, featuring gun manufacturers who design weapons especially for children. "Second Amendment rights are personal to me," said former Alaska governor and Tea Party darling Sarah Palin, the star turn among the opening-day speakers, sporting a tight "Women Hunt" T-shirt. "This fight is about what kind of people we are... but what keeps me optimistic, keeps us reloading in this fight... is the faces I see here today," she said, looking out at the crowd. "How I love you guys." Setting the tone for the weekend, NRA chief lobbyist Chris Cox accused President Barack Obama of exploiting the December massacre of 20 children and six educators at a Connecticut elementary school for political gain.  "That's what our opponents do: they use tragedy to restrict freedom," he said. "It's up to us to stop them. We are freedom's greatest hope, its biggest army and its brightest future." "Stand and Fight" is the theme of the NRA's 142nd convention since it was founded in 1871 to promote better marksmanship, and the list of speakers gave the event the distinct flavor of a conservative jamboree. Critics of the NRA have also converged on Houston, seeking to draw attention to the more than 30,000 gun-related deaths in the United States every year with a vigil outside the convention venue. Obama has vowed to renew his quest for universal background checks on gun buyers -- an idea once supported by the NRA -- and other measures in the wake of their stunning defeat in the Senate on April 17. Gun control advocates also want a ban on military-style semi-automatic assault rifles like the one used in Newtown and, in a Colorado movie theater shooting in which 12 were killed in July. But the NRA -- which claims 4.5 million members plus support from the multinational firearms industry -- sees gun laws as eroding Americans' right "to keep and bear arms" set out in the Second Amendment of the Constitution. Last month, a Pew Research Center poll found that Americans are split between those who say defending gun rights is a priority (49 percent) and those who favor gun control (45 percent). Palin topped the bill of opening-day speakers that also included former Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum and Texas Governor Rick Perry, who was introduced with a video of him target-shooting with an assault rifle. "Texas and the NRA are almost a personal fit," Perry said. "In Texas, we believe in freedom, we believe in personal responsibility and we believe in the God-given right for people to have peace of mind and to defend themselves and their family," he said to loud applause. Warming up for his keynote address Saturday, NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre -- on a stage festooned with US flags -- decried "a vicious effort to attack the Second Amendment and demonize lawful American gun owners." "It's the NRA that's stepped forward with meaningful solutions that would actually help make people safer," including protecting schools "as much as we protect our jewelry stores and our sports stadiums" with armed guards, he said. Gun ownership, LaPierre said, is "an unfettered natural American right... and if the media doesn't like it -- and we know they won't -- we know where they can go."