DALLAS _ Donald Trump returned to the NRA's embrace Friday as a popular, if occasionally unreliable, ally after a rift stemming from the Florida school rampage in February and his short dalliance with expanded background checks and gun confiscation.
He made no mention of such sore topics, keeping the focus on the vast common ground he shares with gun owners who helped deliver the election to him, and whose support Republicans need in November to keep control of Congress.
"These are real patriots," Trump said of the NRA members filling the convention center arena. "Your Second Amendment rights are under siege but they will never, ever be under siege as long as I am your president. We cannot get complacent. We have to win the midterms."
He blamed a rash of mass shootings on "maniacs," and reiterated the prescriptions he's been offering for months: arming more teachers and security guards, and ending gun-free zones.
"Ninety-eight percent of mass public shootings have occurred in places where guns are banned," Trump said. "There's no sign more inviting to a mass killer than a sign that declares, 'This school is a gun-free zone.'"
Politics permeated the annual gathering, where attendees could hear rousing speeches and browse for rifles, tactical gear and cutting-edge gun sights.
The National Rifle Association cast its forum on Friday as a show of strength meant to reassure its own members of their relevance, and dispel any notion that recent massacres have deflated their cause. Trump himself used the platform to bestow endorsements on Republican Texas allies seeking re-election this year, including Gov. Greg Abbott, Sen. Ted Cruz, and state attorney general Ken Paxton.
"Greg, I fully endorse you. You are endorsed," he said. "Ken, you have my full endorsement." And he said, "Full endorsement for this man, Ted Cruz," as cheers, hoots and whistles mixed with boos in the hall.
"Boy, that was very rousing," Trump said.
Vice President Mike Pence warmed up the crowd _ an unprecedented level of flattery in the history of the nation's preeminent gun rights group, and an acknowledgment of its outsize clout in Republican politics.
"You have two friends in the White House. President Donald Trump and I both stand without apology for the Second Amendment and in this administration the right of the people to keep and bear arms will not be infringed," Pence told the crowd in downtown Dallas. "Thank you for all you do to defend liberty and thank you for electing a president and Congress that are making America great again."
The group's annual convention in Dallas is the fourth straight to see Trump profess his love for the right to bear arms, and for the voters motivated to protect that right.
The president landed in Dallas about 12:25 p.m. in a driving rain and headed to a convention center named for his ambassador to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, the former U.S. senator.
Gun control advocates accused him of bending his knee to the NRA in lieu of working to curb gun violence.
"It's the job of the president to ensure our public safety, but Trump takes his marching orders from the NRA," Gabby Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman who was badly wounded in a shooting, said in a statement. "Trump has ignored the pleas of young people demanding safer gun laws. ... Donald Trump has allowed his presidency to be hijacked by gun lobbyists and campaign dollars. As a result, the threats to our kids and our communities remain unaddressed."
Chris Cox, the NRA's chief lobbyist, framed attacks on gun rights after mass shootings in Florida, Texas and Nevada in the last six months as misguided.
"The National Rifle Association is the only organization in America that gets blamed for crimes our members don't commit. ... The 5 million law-abiding members of the National Rifle Association will not accept one shred of blame for the acts of madmen and the failures of government," Cox told the crowd.
Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's longtime leader, also complained that Hollywood and media elites try to blame the NRA for horrific crimes the group and its members have nothing to do with, aiming to "kill the NRA and napalm the Second Amendment out of existence."
With public opinion on gun rights jarred by each spike in the toll of innocents, in Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Texas, and Parkland, Fla., Trump eagerly lent his voice to the NRA's push to keep attention on criminals, "maniacs" and "madmen" as various speakers labeled the killers.
Trump pushed the point by citing a hospital in London, where firearms are illegal but violence still erupts as criminals turn to knives.
"There's blood all over the floors of this hospital," he said. "Knives, knives, knives."
As part of the public relations push meant to deflect calls for tighter gun laws, the NRA and Trump also put a bright spotlight on a hero of the church rampage in Sutherland Springs last fall.
Stephen Willeford, an NRA instructor who confronted the shooter, kept a bloodbath that cost 26 lives from being even worse.
"We are the people that stand between the people who would do evil and our neighbors. ... Any one of you would do what I did," Willeford said from the main stage. "I responded for what God told me to do."
The crowd gave Willeford an ovation.
Pence chided news media for spending too much time reporting on "deranged" attackers rather than on good guys with a gun who protect their neighbors. This was a recurring theme at the convention, which drew upwards of 70,000 gun enthusiasts to Dallas.
"They focus on the tragedies and the heartbreak," Pence said, "but too often many in the media ignore what happen when well-trained law-abiding gun owners save lives."
He and Trump recalled the July 7, 2016, ambush on Dallas police officers, blocks away from the convention center, and the killing of another officer last week. Dallas, said Trump, has "a police force that has lost too many heroes but has not lost its will to protect you."
Trump highlighted his support for beefing up school security and mental health treatment and intervention. He argued that the shooter at the Parkland high school in February _ an attack that has amplified demands for a crackdown on guns _ should have been intercepted well before the rampage.
"There has never been a case where more red flags have been shown," Trump said.
Ahead of Trump's arrival, a series of hard-edged videos warmed up the crowd, mocking Hollywood elites and the news media. A brief clip of Hillary Clinton triggered jeers.
One video focused on "the ungrateful" _ depicted as Black Lives Matter protesters. Police, the video says, "even protect the ungrateful, the ones who are quick to criticize but are even quicker to dial 9-1-1."
In another video, an NRA spokeswoman denounced media "saboteurs" who undermine and question the legitimacy of Trump. "They will perish in the political flames of their own fires," she says.
A third video, a promo for the NRA's TV channel, satirized CNN's advertising campaign that uses an apple to symbolize irrefutable truth _ observable from right or left, but still an apple.
"This is a lemon," the NRA's version says. "Some people might try to convince you that this is a journalist. ... They might even put JOURNALIST in all caps. ... Don't be fooled. This is not a journalist. This is a lemon. A bitter lemon." The crowd cheered.
Pence conceded that mass shootings are a scourge _ and a political challenge.
"We ... resolve to confront this menace with all our strength and we are doing just that under the leadership of this president. I promise you under President Trump's leadership we will not rest and we will not relent until we end this."
He touted the $2 billion the federal government is sending local schools to beef up security, and legislation Trump signed to improved the federal gun buyer database, and his push for more resources to treat mental illness.
"We need to end this evil and protect our liberties at the same time. That's the American way," Pence said.
Plano resident Mary Fortune, who recently joined the NRA and was attending her first convention, was eager to see Trump, though she was concerned about having both the president and vice president in the same place at the same time.
Why did she come? "There's a lot of talk about taking away guns, but as a single female I have a right to protect myself."
This was the first time both a president and vice president attended the annual meeting.
"President Trump is wonderful. He's doing what he said he's going to do," said another attendee, Stan Messinger, 71, from Lafayette, La.
He said Trump doesn't get enough credit _ for advancing peace on the Korean peninsula and for a strong economy. He views blanket coverage of Trump's hush money deal with porn actress Stormy Daniels as a distraction ginned up by Washington insiders trying to hobble the president. "That's bull _ BS," he said. "That happened 11 years ago. People do stuff like that. Look at the Clintons and all they did."
Like other NRA activists, he rejects the need for further restrictions on guns, despite a rash of mass killings in the last year. He agrees with Trump, Sen. John Cornyn and others on the need to improve the background check system, so killers like the gunman who shot up a church in Sutherland Springs late last year gets properly flagged.
Messinger owns a floor covering business and at least 10 guns, including an AR-15. He has no problem with Trump's push to ban bump stocks, the accessory used by the Las Vegas sniper to kill nearly 60 people last year by allowing near-automatic rates of fire. His son-in-law had one and got rid of it, and he was pleased.
"There's really no need for anything like that," Messinger said. "People want all this crazy stuff."
