Last month, the Second Amendment Foundation, SAF, celebrated 50 years of existence. The group was started by Alan Gottlieb and has grown to become a powerhouse in fighting for and in maintaining our Second Amendment rights, in courthouses in nearly every state, across the country.
News2A contributor John Petrolino did an extensive series on the origins, roots, and future of SAF. You can find parts 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, & part 5 here.
For the last 38 years, SAF has been hosting Gun Rights Policy Conference, often referred to as GRPC . It’s an opportunity for the movers and shakers in the Second Amendment community to get together and set the tone for the upcoming year in the civil rights battles. Members from all around the United States, and even from abroad, attend this event. The event is free for members of SAF. A life membership is only $150 and you can join at this link.
It’s been a highlight for me since 2016 when I started attending and speaking at GRPC. Several years ago, with the increase in growth of social media and content creators, SAF started hosting AMMcon, the Alternative Multi Media conference. AMMcon is an opportunity for bloggers, writers, and video creators to get together, and share their expertise in the field.
This year there are going to be a number of new presenters, and a few that we’ve had before. AMMcon is being held on Friday, September 27, in San Diego at the San Diego Marriott Mission hotel. It’s an all-day event that is going to be jam-packed with information. It is free for members in the Second Amendment media. And they are opening it to others in the gun community this year. However, pre-registration is required and can be done at this link.
This year is going to be a fantastic experience. We are going to have Jason Jameson present on how to use artificial intelligence to our advantage.
Rich Yumul, from Gun Owners Radio, is going to show people how to better communicate their message and make it so that non-gun people can understand what they’re talking about and where they’re coming from.
Lee Williams is going to do a very extensive presentation on how to cut through the nonsense and figure out how something in a story is true and what is not. He’s also going to do an interactive presentation on gathering information from an interview. He’s going to take some questions from the audience, and everyone will have an assignment to do while they’re there and they’re supposed to write about the interview. Then we are going to see how it is presented by the participants. Then they’ll get pointers on how to improve what they wrote.
Joe Greelee from the NRA is going to be there to help explain legal terms and definitions so that the layperson can understand legalese.
John Petrolino is going to do a presentation on how he went from the written word to video and talk about how he put his five-part documentary together on SAF.
Dakota Adelpha is going to do a presentation on managing expectations and how to deal with negative and inappropriate comments or posts on social media.
Gabe Eltaeb, from Big Man Comics, is a comic book artist and is going to talk about the influence that comic books have on the gun community. He’s also going to talk about how to better get your message across through a medium like comic books.
Mark W. Smith, from Four Boxes Diner, is also going to be doing a presentation.
Jared Yanis, from Guns & Gadgets YouTube channel, is going to give a keynote speech.
AMMcon has been growing for the last seven years. It started off feeling like everyone would go up and share what they did in the gun community. It sort of felt like a little self-promotion feature. But it has turned into much more. There are content creators and influencers talking about how they handle their social media pages, how to get started, and what are the best practices for creators. In the past, presenters have talked about how to brand themselves better and consistently on all their media. Or how to use video editing software on your phone to create content. There was even one presentation, where everyone went around and showed participants how to better handle and manage their image, branding, and message.
AMMcon and GRPC are two events that I really look forward to every September. The events travel around the country to try to make them accessible to everyone. And sometimes they have to bring the battle behind enemy lines in states like Illinois and California.
If you are a content creator, or you would like to become a content creator, you need to come to AMMcon. Again, registration is free but you do have to be active in the gun community somehow. If you’re in a group that wants to get your message out better, you should send someone who does your communications. And if you want to see all of the people making a difference in the gun community and in the gun lobby, you should be coming to Gun Rights Policy Conference in San Diego on September 28 and 29.
