I always figured the NY and now DC Attorney General’s fishing expedition was partly to get a list of big NRA donors and accidentally leak them to the press so they could be hunted down and shamed by online mobs. That shoe has seemingly begun to drop, with a New York Times article outing big donors.
They name several people, not just the dead guy. I believe this is intended to intimidate people out of donating large sums to the NRA. The article notes that grassroots support for NRA is waning. I’d note that my support for NRA is not waning. My support for Wayne is. There’s a substantial difference between those two things.
This just might be the sensible reform movement I’ve been looking for. It’s not tremendously ambitious, but that’s probably smart. I also don’t see they are rallying around a cult of personality, which is also a good thing. Stick to the issues, and don’t mix it with hardline bullshit a lot of people aren’t going to agree with.
These days, everyone seems to leak stuff about the NRA to The New York Times, including the NRA itself. It is likely that the source for this article are the donors themselves. This article certainly raises the profile of those donors withholding funds from the NRA.
The paragraph about the NRA Foundation transferring over $200 million to the NRA is certainly interesting. I don’t think any donor wants to end up getting involved in an IRS, NY AG or DC AG investigation.
At this point, Wayne LaPierre is the NRA and the NRA is Wayne LaPierre. They are inseparable. Tom King’s open letter and Marion Hammer’s e-mail made that pretty clear. The NRA bylaws and the largely incompetent or complacent Board are making it close to impossible for the members to take control of the organization. (The mutineers on the Board are, unfortunately, a small minority.)
The next Board meeting will be interesting and likely define the organization for years to come. The NRA will either rejuvenate, clean up and live on, or die a slow and painful death.
“At this point, Wayne LaPierre is the NRA and the NRA is Wayne LaPierre. They are inseparable”
Have you entertained the idea that most of this LaPierre hysteria is only a diversion issue, and that there really is a much broader, unspoken factional fight? One that won’t be resolved just by getting rid of LaPierre?
The NRA’s character began to change more than a decade ago, even before the Tea Party era, and for sure long before the Trump era. Maybe that was just LaPierre’s evolution to being what he now appears to be, but as an outsider it looked to me more like a slow-motion takeover by a new, different faction. Maybe things came to a head when the old factions were forced to face what was actually happening?
There has been a political factional fight for decades. Just like in any other political organization, there is always a fight between pragmatists and fundamentalists. That won’t go away when Wayne leaves!
However, the current fight started between different corrupt factions of the NRA over money! Since all factions involved engaged in a scorched earth strategy, the NRA today is close to a heap of ash. Wayne LaPierre is the CEO of that mess and is, in part, responsible for it, so are many NRA Officers and Directors.
There is no “LaPierre hysteria”. There is just the mess that used to be the NRA, a lot of unemployed people, huge self-inflicted legal and financial liabilities, and an outraged membership.
You selectively quoted me. Was there a reason for that? There is a reason that I posted this with the sentences following after what you quoted to make sense! The NRA leadership has circled the wagons and has defined the NRA as Wayne LaPierre Inc. Tom King’s open letter was pretty clear about that: https://www.ammoland.com/2019/07/demise-of-nra-greatly-exaggerated/
“You selectively quoted me. Was there a reason for that?”
No, no particular reason. I just try to recall whatever phrase someone used, that triggered the thought I’m about to express. As always, my apologies if it seemed I was implying something in addition to what I said.
In this case, it’s just that I’ve become conditioned to suspect there is something hidden behind whatever issue seems to be attracting everyone’s focus; because at least half the time, there is.
In this example, you’ll never hear me arguing that LaPierre is innocent or a good guy. In fact all we’re learning are the details fleshing out what many of us already knew or suspected about him in principle. He’s a crook in a nest of crooks.
I’m sure you are absolutely right that the corruption has always been about the money. The thing is, that even factional competition for money, is born out of factions that were formed around some other factor or alignment, like narrow differences in ideology; then the founding differences become lost in the pursuit of the money.
The next NRAAM is gonna be lit, as the lawn invaders say.
Given the LaPierre faction’s habit of lashing out at dissenters, I’m honestly curious if this is truly a mistake given the recent move by certain high-dollar donors.
The fact that there’s reason to suspect that this could actually be malice rather than simple incompetence is further proof that LaPierre and the mouthpieces of his regime all need to go in order to restore confidence in the organization.