By Peggy Tartaro,
Executive Editor

While the calendar has not quite reached the end of 2007, the 22nd annual Gun Rights Policy Conference (GRPC) held the first weekend in October marks the end of my "official" travel for the year and is a good jumping off point for a review of the year as we wrap up W&G issues for 2007 and look ahead to our nineteenth anniversary next year.

This year's GRPC was held in the Cincinnati area, in Ft. Mitchell, KY. A couple of stalwart Kentuckians expressed dismay that we billed it as happening in "Cincinnati," when in fact Northern Kentucky was host. But "Cincinnati" airport is also in Kentucky and we used that designation because for those out of the area it gives a pretty good geographic locator.

By having the event in Kentucky, rather than Cincinnati, open carry was not a problem, and many of the 500+ attendees took advantage of this. You will be unsurprised to learn there was no panic about a sizeable minority of the crowd being visibly armed.

W&G Publisher Julianne Gottlieb and I have generally shared moderating duties at GRPC along uneven-but to my mind-satisfactory lines: She has the bulk of the duties during Saturday's 8:15 am to 6 pm program and I host on Sunday from 9 am until about 1 pm.Alas, this year Julie was representing the Second Amendment Foundation at World Forum meetings in Palermo, Italy, so she got to eat fresh anchovies and travel 20,000 miles round trip and I got Saturday's marathon gig, with my usual Sunday gig going to newly installed Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) Executive Director Mark Taff, who did a fine job.

I was a bit apprehensive about the long day not just because of the unseasonable 90 degree heat but also because it's always a difficult job to be the keeper of the schedule especially when it means having to hold informative speakers to small amounts of time.

And GRPC had, as it always does, an embarrassment of riches when it comes to speakers. It is the only venue for gunowners in which a who's who of leaders takes the stage over a day and a half. All of the national gun groups were represented as were many of the state and local grassroots players.

This year we also had attorneys in the Parker vs. DC case discussing this landmark case challenging the District's 30-year handgun ban and requirement that long guns be kept inoperable. By the time you get this issue, the US Supreme Court will have decided whether it wants to take Parker or whether it wants to let the Appellate Court ruling in the case stand. Either decision would be a victory for Washington's gunowners and would-be gunowners. But should the Supreme Court take up Parker, arguments-pro and con-would dominate the news next year, not uncoindientally, a presidential election year. A favorable Supreme Court ruling would most likely lead to challenges on bans in places like Chicago. But, attorneys Alan Gura and Robert Levy reminded the GRPC audience, the Court could rule favorably to gunowners on some aspects of Parker and unfavorably on others. While Parker-however it is decided-would not end the debate on an individual right to own guns in the US, it would certainly bring the discussion once more before the general public.

Next year's presidential race, as well as a host of federal and state elections were also on the GRPC agenda.

All of the current crop of presidential hopefuls were invited to attend GRPC but only Texas Rep. Ron Paul, running for the Republican nod, made an appearance. Paul ran as the Libertarian Party candidate for president in 1988 and retains his strong Libertarian Party ties.

In addition to the 500 or so GRPC attendees, between 300 and 400 Paul supporters showed up to here their guy speak. Many of them were under 30 and quite a few were in the 20-30 demographic. That's good news for gunowners. While Paul has only the slimmest chance of getting the GOP line in 2008, he is bringing active, committed, young people into the political process. And while I personally have some disagreements with the Libertarian Party platform, it is emphatically pro-gun. All those young voters coming into the process on the side of American gunowners is very good news.

GRPC had an array of women speakers who informed the crowd and infused the group as a whole. Among them: Hawaii's Malia Zimmerman; Maine (and the Second Amendment Sisters') Genie Jennings; Indiana (and state Representative) Jackie Walorski, California (and the Pink Pistols') Nicole Stallard and Chicago's (and gunownersagainstviolence.org) Colleen Dawson. Oh, and our luncheon keynote speaker was Ohio (and the House of Representatives') Jean Schmidt.

From my vantage point on the dais I could see that the attendance was at least 30% women-many familiar faces to me, but many more unfamiliar. That's good news for all women gunowners, this year or any other.

Peggy Tartaro

Photo © Copyright 1998 Nancy Floyd, used with permission.