Battleswarm blog has posted on the NRA’s situation, and was linked by the very popular legal blog Instapundit. The (antigun) Trace has an article as well, analyzing the finances, fiscal problems with the NRA Foundation, and the decline in program budgets. Newsweek weighs in, quoting antigunners celebrating — “Great news,” “For many years NRA has been hemorrhaging money and political power,” “the NRA brand has become toxic.”
The enemies of American gun owners are rejoicing at the actions of NRA’s board and “leadership.” That should be a clear message to everyone, but especially the board.
Speaking of which, the January board meeting will be enormously shortened. There is talk of it being scheduled for an hour, with as many committee meetings as possible held over the internet beforehand.
The explanation being given is that many directors will need to get to the New York trial, beginning the week after the board meeting. We’re suspicious as to that. New York starts off the trial, and NRA won’t need to put on its witnesses until 3-4 weeks into the trial. Is NRA really going to pay NYC hotel rates for nearly a month for each of its director-witnesses? Are those directors going to take that time off their jobs? They won’t even be able to watch the trial, potential witnesses are excluded from a trial until they have testified.
That’s not the reason. Might the meeting have been shortened for another reason, such as startling the board with an announcement, then keeping the board from being able to talk and think it over? If so, what might that announcement be?
NRA in Danger 
SCRAP top leadership and start over!
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The NRA is toast. There’s nothing anyone can do to save it. The few good guys who want to get on the board and reform the NRA are wasting their time. The NRA is as un-reformable as the FBI, CIA, ATF etc. Gun owners need to join other gun groups and work on building them up.
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I disagree! However, the first step to reversing it will be to put it into receivership.
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Since you disagree, can you please tell me why? Why is the NRA worth saving? Are we as the 2A community trying to save an organization? Or are we trying to defend and further our 2A rights? Which is most important? The organization or the cause?
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1. The entirety of all of the 2nd amendment foundations don’t even close to the revenue the NRA brings in to defend the 2 amendment!
2. It is a historic institution, in fact, the oldest nonprofit in the United States.
3. When the Wayne et cronies, and board members are removed and replaced by a much smaller COMPETENT board, rewritten bylaws to never allow this corruption to occur, annual INDEPENDENT audits, new marketing strategies that work, etc. the NRA will once again be a premier powerful organization with clout!
Goodnight – I have more work on the class action suit to do.
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Well Nick,
We sure know where you stand. I can only reply that many people disagree. The judge, thanks to people on this thread, guaranteed that the NRA would survive. It is with changes. Mentioned my Jeff and Frank.
When I go to Harrisburg PA and face the elected ones they ask me where is the NRA on the legislation. Not SAF, not FPC, and not GOA. They ask where the NRA is.
Hopefully you are a life member of the associations I mentioned ANd the NRA.
The injured gorilla still has enough grassroots sway to lobby government!
We need to change the way it became. We allowed it, we ignored the changes. WE are to blame. Let’s hope the judge, who I believe truly gets it, rules accordingly.
Let’s also vote in the 4 reformers on the ballot in the next election and help stirring shit up if it gets extended.
I have been a life member since 1975. Not sure what national or state organizations you have worked with, but IMNSHO, you are wrong. Respectively!
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To Nick, once again, from my earlier post, the amount of money the NRA receives annually for 2nd amendment issues is SIGNIFICANTLY larger than all of the of 2nd amendment organizations combined!
No one on this website is telling you not donate to these other organizations, but be part of the solution for the NRA and not part of the problem.
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“Are those directors going to take that time off their jobs?”
I guess this is where the advanced age of most of the NRA’s board is an asset and not a liability. They won’t miss work because they are already retired.
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The vast majority of the board are a liability and they are on borrowed time.
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In regards to your above reply, which I cannot reply to directly due to the reply function not being an option, I say, you are thinking with emotion. You are not seeing the forest through the trees. You’re clinging to the past. Besides, historically the NRA has been on the wrong side of very many gun control debates… The wrong side being, siding with the anti gunners.
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How many get a medical waiver? They can’t make board meetings or the annual meeting, but 350 a night in NY?
We shall see.
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About time they lived most of the committee meetings to virtual. Now they should publish those so members can attend.
Brewer is notorious for last minute settlements – look at the AcMac case – either that or bankruptcy. .
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Mr. Olson – your comment “The NRA is toast. There’s nothing that anyone can do to save it” is erroneous!
Judge Cohen has previously denied NY Attorney General James’ lawsuit to “dissolve” the NRA. Consequently, the NRA will always be around. Given that fact, you are the one not “seeing the forest through the trees.”
Working with the great law firm LOEVY & LOEVY we (myself and several partners) carefully discuss every possible angle and myriad views to reach a consensus which makes the statement that we “are thinking with emotion” a disservice.
I agree that the NRA has made many bad decisions on “gun control,” but your logic is flawed, because the NRA will always be around!
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The sharks smell blood in the water — again — and are again trying to launch another media feeding frenzy. The current “leadership” of NRA earned all of this. As David Dell’Aquila has pointed out in his comments, the judge in the NY suit has been extremely fair, rational, and reasonable in everything he has said and done, and he’s taken dissolution of the NRA off the table, so we know that something will continue — unless LaPierre and company are allowed to keep draining the Association’s resources until there’s just nothing left… They can’t drain the NRA Foundation though, so there will still be something to rebuild from.
The broad range of programs and experience the NRA offers cannot be replicated or reproduced by any other organization, and the declines in NRA membership and NRA revenue have not been mirrored to any significant degree as increases in other organizations. NRA has lost over a million members and their annual revenue is down by about $200 million. Meanwhile other groups have membership increases of a few thousand, and revenue increases of a few million. I’d put the crossover at something less than 10%. That means that something like 90% of the people who have left the NRA have not joined any other rights group, and 90% of the funds that are no longer going to the NRA are not going to any other rights group.
Those of us running as reform candidates for the Board are under no illusion that we’re going to sweep in and fix the problems that have taken over 20 years to create. Our hope is that we can ask questions that are currently going un-asked, point out flaws in the current approach, and probably most importantly, have a seat at the table when all of this comes crashing down and a judge has to try to put it back together for the benefit of the membership.
One way or another, the future of the NRA is almost certainly going to be decided by a judge.
I’ve spoken with a number of lawyers about the case over recent years, and the consensus is that there are 3 possible options for the NRA today: 1. They go to court in NY and lose, in which case the NY judge fires the executives, probably dissolves the Board, and appoints an overseer to reorganize the Association. (We really need someone who understands this mess and can represent the membership’s interests to that judge as he’s making his decisions.) 2. The NRA again declares bankruptcy, in which case the bankruptcy judge orders a full reorganization of the Association, firing the current executives and probably dissolving the Board, and appoints an overseer to manage the reorganization. (Again, we would want knowledgeable people in the best possible position to speak for the members’ interests.) Or 3. The NRA tries to make some sort of last-minute settlement in the NY suit, which would have to be approved by Tish James AND Judge Cohen. I can’t imagine how bad a settlement would have to be to get approval from James, and I can’t imagine Judge Cohen accepting any settlement that was so bad for NRA members that James would accept it.
In any of these three scenarios, having some people who openly oppose the current regime, but who have long histories of standing up for NRA members, and who have some demonstrable credibility with the membership — such as recently having been nominated for the Board by petition of the members and hopefully having been recently elected to the board by the members — could be crucially important. We might be tilting at windmills, but the alternative is to stand back and watch it burn, and watch the media and our opponents gleefully report that the death of the NRA is a result of Americans moving toward support of gun control, rather than NRA members being disgusted with crooked “leadership.”
I choose to keep fighting for my rights and the organization that is still in the best position to effectively support and defend those rights.
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Jeff Know has significant knowledge and expertise on its history, bylaws, key players, procedures for the annual meeting, etc. He and the other reformers are essential to get on the board to start the change. Please understand it will still require the assistance of a judge whether in NY, TN, or federal bankruptcy.
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Jeff Knox is correct and has a great understanding of the real consequences of NRA collapse. The vast majority of those who chose not to renew their memberships haven’t gone on to other 2A groups. They went to work and took care of their families. They are not activists but hobbyists. They would listen to ILA then vote and get their friends and family to do the same. Now no one’s talking to them except to ask for money.
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All the more reason why Knox and Dell’Aquila are dead right about saving whatever remnants of the NRA are left after this fiasco, putting it nicely.
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Letitia is consumed with a blind, daemonic fury to crush the NRA so thoroughly that it could never rise again. I don’t see that happening. Nor do I believe she would jot her name to any last minute settlement that does not kill the NRA mercilessly allowing her nemeses off the hook.
I concur a reorganization is the inevitable result. That hundreds of thousands if not millions of annual and life members (bless their hearts) have not abandoned the NRA and will help restore and fund it in the aftermath. Even the most weak and faint of heart will swarm back into the fold once the scourge has been removed.
And your right the organization will not be totally left destitute. Much that has been pillaged, plundered and thieved can be reclaimed & revitalized. The NRA is too important for many to just abandon and let it die.
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