Protesters confront NRA board member at gun meeting

Gregory Korte | USA TODAY

HOUSTON — Wearing a black hoodie on an unseasonably cold Houston morning and speaking in a loud, clear voice, a single protester read the names, ages and hometowns of the thousands of victims of gun violence in the United States since the Newtown tragedy.

"The NRA needs to hear about the consequences of their actions," explained Heather Ross, a 27-year-old from Austin, who read the names from her iPhone in front of a red, white and blue abstract sculpture.

By Saturday afternoon, Ross was joined by perhaps a hundred more protesters at a park across across from the National Rifle Association's annual meeting. They represented Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, Texans for Smart Gun Regulation and an ad hoc group calling itself Occupy the NRA.

The protests were organized, civil and — when NRA board member Todd Rathner wandered across the street looking for a bank — often spirited.

"How many of your members supported universal background checks?" asked Aaron Black, an activist who flew in from New York to protest. He cited polls showing the number as high as 92%.

"I've told you three times today, I don't believe there's a 92% —" Rathner said.

"You have not told me three times," Black said.

"It's a bogus number," Rathner said. "If you explain to people that universal background checks require registration, that number would plummet."

"What endgame do you see?" asked Jeff Hunter of Houston. "Is the NRA going to form militias when the government comes to get your guns?"

"If there's no registration, we don't have to worry about it," Rathner said.

Black gave credit to Rathner for engaging the protesters. "This guy thinks he's representing gun owners? He's not representing gun owners. He's representing gun manufacturers."

He tried to confront Rathner with autopsy photos of 16-year-old Brishell Jeffries, one of three teenagers killed in a drive-by shooting in Washington, D.C., in 2010. "Gun violence is so sterilized, and dumbed down and Disneyfied, that no one cares. It didn't even faze this guy."

Rathner acknowledged a problem with violence in America, but said he doesn't blame the guns. Protesters, he said, have been misinformed by the media.

"I'm comfortable debating it, but I'm not going to change their minds, and they're not going to change mine," said Rathner, a gun lobbyist from Tuscon, Ariz., and self-described "Jewish redneck."

As the NRA announced that its rolls had reached a record 5 million members, the gun control groups said they, too, were growing. Michelle Green, a leader of the Houston chapter of Moms Demand Action, was collecting signatures on a petition to Texas congressmen and senators.

She said the chapter's membership is up 60% since conservative Senate Republicans — led by Texas's own Sen. Ted Cruz — blocked an attempt to expand background checks to cover gun shows and the Internet.

"We're ballooning since the background check bill failed," Green said. "Newtown is what did it for me. I think every mother knows where she was when that happened. It was like 9/11."