FRANKFORT — Republican U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul reached out to gun advocates on Saturday, trying to shore up support from a major voting bloc in Kentucky.

The Bowling Green eye doctor whose campaign Web site sports footage of him shooting an automatic rifle signed autographs and glad-handed well-wishers at a Louisville gun show.

It's not an unusual venue for Paul, who attended similar events during his GOP primary race to rail against politicians who aren't "true believers" in the Second Amendment.

"I'm a proud defender of the Second Amendment," Paul, a member of the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America, told gun advocates Saturday.

In speeches across Kentucky in the past year, Paul has complained that the Second Amendment is being "incrementally destroyed" by political leaders who have "strayed" from the principles of the founding fathers.

Paul faces Democrat Jack Conway in the November general election in Kentucky, where the NRA routinely gets involved.

The NRA hasn't yet made an endorsement in the Senate race. Gun Owners of America endorsed Paul in the primary.

Conway, the state's attorney general, also is vying for the NRA endorsement, said campaign spokeswoman Allison Haley.

"Jack Conway is a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and gun owners' rights," Haley said.

Paul urged gun advocates at the Louisville show to visit his campaign Web site, which also includes a speech delivered at the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot and Military Gun Show.

"A lot of politicians will show up at a gun-rights groups like this, and they'll say, 'we support the Second Amendment; we're all for you,' and then you send them off to Washington and, before you know it, they vote for the Brady Bill or trigger locks, or they vote against concealed weapons because they're just giving you lip service," Paul said.