Please Do Not Display Weapons: "In consideration of other guests and staff please do not openly display weapons. While in your guest room, all weapons must be concealed." —Hyatt Regency sign at the Gun Rights Policy Conference in Burlingame, California.
Steve Goode is the fourth man in the hotel who offers to take me to a gun range. At 63, the mostly deaf National Rifle Association instructor wears high-powered digital hearing aides and owns a low-powered shotgun he uses for trap-shooting. Fortunately, "You don't need to hear to shoot," he tells me at this year's Gun Rights Policy Conference in Burlingame, California. Like the other white male boomers crammed into a Hyatt ballroom one recent weekend, Goode registered for the two-day event (with added poolside reception!) because he's riled by handgun regulations cropping up in states across the US—especially in Illinois, where he lives. The waiting periods to get a gun permit, the training, the registration, the background checks, the restrictions on where, how, and which firearm and ammo he can use—all these not only threaten his hobby but his ability to defend himself, he says—and he's becoming more politically active this fall as a result.
John Lott was in attendance. Tom
1 comment:
Was he packing heat?
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