John M Snyder

Career

Snyder is a former seminarian with a degree in political science. His career as a gun lobbyist began after eight years working for the National Rifle Association (NRA) as editor of American Rifleman. He claims that he registered as a gun lobbyist even before the NRA had its own people lobbying the Capitol. In the early 1970s, he helped to found the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA).

Christmas cards

Since 1979, Snyder has sent annual, controversial Christmas cards to the President, Pope, members of Congress, and the media.

Some of the Christmas card illustrations include:

Saint Gabriel Possenti Society

In 1987, Snyder founded the Saint Gabriel Possenti Society to promote public recognition of Gabriel and to lobby for Gabriel's designation by the Vatican as the "patron saint of hand gunners".

According to the society, Gabriel's marksmanship and proficiency with handguns allegedly saved the village of Isola del Gran Sasso from a band of 20 marauding bandits in 1860. This is in reference to a story mentioned in one biography of the saint, though the author admitted that some of the accounts in his book were invented to "enliven" the story. No account of the event is present in any other independently researched biographies, making it seem unlikely. Moreover, at the time of the alleged incident, 1860, Gabriel was in the later stages of tuberculosis, making such strenuous exercise impossible.

John McCaslin wrote that presidential candidate Pat Buchanan pledged to Snyder, "when I get to that White House, I'm gonna take that medallion you gave me - the patron saint of hand-gunners, Gabriel Possenti - and I'm gonna hang that in the Oval Office right along with Robert E. Lee's pistol!"