25th Annual Gun Rights Policy Conference
'Saving Freedom'

Photos and Report by
Dave Workman
Senior Editor

Our GRPC 2011 report is divided into sessions for easier reading.
Click on the desired section to read.

September 24, 2011
September 25, 2011

“This movement has put their faith in the Republican Party one last time.”

Keynote Address
Freshman Illinois Congressman Joe Walsh told the Gun Rights Policy Conference luncheon audience that he is grateful Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, “because he woke up this country.”

“This country we love is going through a revolution,” he said. “What a glorious time to be in this country.”

Walsh, a self-acknowledged “child of the Tea Party movement,” recounted a spat he’d had a few weeks before with Arizona Sen. John McCain, who called the Tea Party congressmen “hobbits.”

“I said Mr. McCain, if I’m a hobbit, you’re a troll,” he said. “You, sir, have been in Washington too long.”

Had McCain been elected president in 2008, Walsh said, the country would be crawling slowly in the same direction it is now moving.

“There’s nothing subtle about President Obama,” Walsh observed. “He took the football and he’s running.”

He said the American public has stopped watching the Sunday football games, gotten up off the couch and decided this is not the country they grew up in.

Walsh accused the media of not “getting it.” The press treats him like some kind of “exotic zoo animal,” a radical part of the Republican Party. He also said the mainstream Republicans and Democrats do now understand what the Tea Party movement is about.

“The reason we’re going through this revolution is because this movement of people wants their country back,” he said.

He defined the Tea Party movement as people who are “frustrated, concerned, scared, ticked-off and really angry about how big government is getting, and how much debt we’re placing on the backs of our children.” He said the movement is bigger than the Republican and Democrat parties.

“This movement of people sends people like me to Congress,” he said.

And he offered this warning: “This movement has put their faith in the Republican Party one last time.”

He said he has challenged House Speaker John Boehner to be bolder. He also said Republicans “really need to step up.” He said Tea Party Republicans were sent to Congress to shake up the Republican Party, and gun rights is a central issue.

“There is no clearer, concise dividing line in this revolution than the Second Amendment,” Walsh commented. “This revolution is purely about freedom. Barack Obama wants to take more of it away from you. The Democrats want to take more of it away from you. Too many Republicans tend to more slowly want to take more of it away from you. We can’t allow that.”

He taught American government and challenged his students to tell him what the most important amendment was in the Bill of Rights. Invariably, they chose the First Amendment, and he corrected them by explaining that the Second Amendment is the “last stand” about protecting us from the government, and “it defends all the other amendments.”

“It pains me that the media and politicians go after guns so much,” he said.

Guns are an easy target. The liberal media and too many politicians blame guns for everything, he explained.

Politicians do not have the courage to address illegal immigration; they don’t have the courage to shake up the education system, so they blame guns.

Walsh said the gun rights legal battle is key to the movement.

“We need to keep winning the legal battle,” he said.

He turned his attention briefly to the United Nations, and said that if he were king, he would de-fund the United Nations.

Walsh warned the audience that if Barack Obama is elected to a second term as president, “there is nothing holding him back.”

He said the UN is currently working on mundane, below-the-radar issues that go after the gun rights of American citizens.

And on the subject of firearms, Walsh said it is “an absolute embarrassment” that Illinois is the last state standing against concealed carry in this country.

“We have got to get it passed,” he said.

Walsh advised the audience to work for, and elect, people who are not afraid to talk about the gun rights issue. He said everyone in the room should have been carrying a firearm.

“We’re fighting for the soul of this country,” he declared. “And you’re on our side if you’re not afraid to talk about this issue. This is the most important amendment in the Bill of Rights.”

Walsh said the country has a two- to three-year window to fix the country “or our grandchildren will not forgive us.”

He said the Second Amendment should be a litmus test for elections.

Awards Luncheon Gallery
A hightpoint of the annual luncheon is the awards presentations highlighted in the photos. Also receiving awards were Congressman Darrell Issa, who was unable to attend the GRPC, earned the Gun Rights Legislator of the Year award from the CCRKBA for leading the investigation of Fast and Furious in the House Committee for Oversight and Government Reform which he chairs, and David Hardy, who earned the Second Amendment Foundation’s Scholar of the Year Award, and received his award later.

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