If I’m a judge, no way would I allow a politician to dissolve their political opposition. This is Soviet level shit. I would consider the remedy of removing Wayne. That needs to happen. But as guilty as they might be, most charities and non-profits are going to show issues if put under a microscope. Not saying Wayne is a straight shooter. We’ve known for years a lot of this stuff was going on, and shame on us as members for looking the other way because times were good.
I suspect James knows she won’t get dissolution, but she has political ambitions, and the Dem base will eat this shit up. The cancel cultural warriors will love this. But hopefully adults will intervene and we can just be rid of the problem at the top and move on.
So, if the allegations are factually true, there’s a pretty good chance she will get an order to dissolve. Respectfully, this isn’t “all nonprofits have audit items†level stuff—that’s a massive false equivalence. In the absence of one’s preferred advocacy outcomes there’s very little to suggest that if the facts as alleged in the complaint are true than a dissolution isn’t only within the realm of possible (in terms of appellate scrutiny), it’s arguably appropriate.
Figure out who you like to fill the vacuum. What really bugs me is the actual operational bits of the NRA going away—the help clubs get on education, training, range services, etc.
“Respectfully, this isn’t “all nonprofits have audit items†level stuff”
There’s a point where “They may be sons-of-bitches, but they’re our sons-of-bitches” crosses the line to advocating for a continuing criminal enterprise. We may have arrived there with this example.
On a tangent, this involves the issue of “fake news”, because most people with True Believer personalities have no choice but to refuse to Believe they ever supported a continuing criminal enterprise; they, after all, are the Good Guys. Even if they’ve been bending over and taking it for years, they need to Believe it was always consensual, and they weren’t really being raped.
I also think, Believing that a judge won’t allow dissolution of a politician’s political enemies, smacks a bit of implying the NRA is “too big to fail”, or more exactly “too big to commit a crime.” I.e., that its political status grants it some sort of impunity analogous to “if the POTUS does it, it’s not a crime.”
Last, as for what would fill the vacuum left by the NRA, I for years harbored a fantasy that but for the existence of the NRA, a genuine, altruistic gun rights organization would evolve. Slowly I came to realize that the U.S.’s evolved power structure would assure that any new organization would become (or be born) just as corrupted, with the level of its corruption being proportional to the power it actually wielded.
I share your sorrow for all of the altruistic NRA grunts who dedicated themselves to education, training, range services, etc. But even there, the rest of us allowed Wayne’s World to steal their thunder and panache.
Latest thing I see going around is we all need to rally around SAF. It’s not like it’s another entity with skeletons in its closet in a blue state waiting for rinse and repeat. What could possibly go wrong? I will give that Alan Gottlieb is a hell of a lot smarter than WLP, at least.
“Latest thing I see going around is we all need to rally around SAF.”
From the current range of possibilities for a “replacement” I guess I’d choose SAF as least scummy, but that doesn’t mean totally without scum. Gottlieb has been a lot too avaricious for my tastes, with a bit too much maneuvering to land money in his own pocket. Plus, his past willingness to rub shoulders with things like the Council for National Policy (CNP) takes him off my list. I think “rinse and repeat” would sum up my expectations; same shit, different day.
The remaining national “high profiles” are a combination of fronts, and other avaricious personalities. I think I’d have highest hopes for some proven, state-level organizations in other states, going national. But even there I’d need to know who was providing their initial guidance for doing that.
VCDL seems to be the most commonly known pro-2A group both within their state and nationally (since they are just to the South of the nation’s capital). I could see them taking up that mantle. They responded and mobilized fast when bills were flying in VA. State level orgs like them are a model nationally, where the fight is basically at the state level anyway.
SAF does lawsuits not politics so it isn’t really a replacement.
Oh I fully expect a far left judge in NY to go along with this nonsense. I’d disagree dissolution is appropriate though. Involuntary dissolution is intended for those orgs that are vastly corrupt, don’t even attempt their stated goals and are incapable of being reformed and corrected.
Sanctioning the board and the executives. Running them out of town on a rail. Yeah. Totally appropriate. Give us the members a better opportunity to make changes. Dissolve it and kick us all to the curb, no way.
Yup exactly. Dissolution isn’t appropriate, even taking away the political angle.
“Involuntary dissolution is intended for those orgs that are vastly corrupt, don’t even attempt their stated goals and are incapable of being reformed and corrected.”
And the NRA has failed those criteria, exactly how?
I apologize for the first analogy that jumped to mind: A local guy would do one beautiful cement job in a neighborhood, for a low-ball price. Then when he’d signed up dozens of other customers and collected their down payments, he’d disappear and never do the work.
He went to jail. The few beautiful jobs he did, didn’t count in his favor.
They are not vastly corrupt (10 members of 6 million is not vast), do attempt their stated goals (just because they have done other things doesn’t mean they aren’t even attempting it), are quite capable of being reformed and corrected (just don’t allow the 100 or so members out of 6 million who have been involved to hold office).
No reason to dissolve the NRA.
Regardless of issues at the NRA she just significantly assisted the republican get out the vote issue in November. Politically I think this is horrible timing for the left.
Yes, Trump has been handed more ammo to use in order to tie himself to defense of constitutional rights. *laugh*
We’ll see where that goes! It’s “YOUR SECOND AMENDMENT” after all don’t you know!
Do not delude yourself. Trump may very well win, but the “gun vote” was divvied up a long time ago. No one is going to change anyone’s mind now. All gun owners don’t see the interests of the NRA as being equivalent to gun rights. Many have begun to see the NRA for the scam factory it is, and understand that they were the ones who were scammed.
Not really. And a lot of gun owners on the fence “I’m okay with common sense stuff” will see this as a political hit, be disgusted, and go Trump.
Shame on us members, shame on the board, shame on Wayne. I hope they can’t dissolve the org but I agree that if the allegations are true there at very least needs to be major overhaul – change leadership, restructure board, restructure audit program. I feel defensive of our org but at the same time am sickened by thinking where that money could have been used for constructively, and his retirement deals were a sad embarrassment to every member of an upcoming shafting he was planning to give all of us on his way out.
“We’ve known for years a lot of this stuff was going on. . .”
But fixing it wasn’t all that important, was it?
I count my “years” since c. 1986, which was the last time I remember sending the NRA any money; I confess that as a kid just over 40 I was beguiled by whatever trinket they were offering. I can’t claim I identified the current problems, but I could tell that somehow nothing about the NRA was what it was claimed to be.
Old Story Time: I had friends on the NRA Tech Staff. When Wayne came in, they were fired and replaced with friends of the new, Wayne faction. It wasn’t that I was upset over friends losing their enviably jobs, it was that that kind of political house-cleaning did not bode well; and dang, it turns out I was right.
Here is the WashPo’s rendering of the story. I think it is slightly more comprehensive.
Paywall’d can’t read.
Here: http://archive.is/7BUgD
Not only does her motion need to get denied, regardless of what WLP did or didn’t do, she needs to be prosecuted for denial of civil rights under color of law. Leftists keep doing lawfare with absolutely no response from conservatives.
“denial of civil rights under color of law”? Delusional much?
The NRA is a non-profit corporation chartered in NY that clearly broke the guiding laws for non-profit corporations. The NY AG can fine and remove NRA Officers and Directors and can dissolve the organization through legal proceedings. This legal fact has been known for 18 months now, since the initial reports about corruption and mismanagement at the NRA.
Today’s announcement was expected! It was the result of inaction by the NRA Board, which had ample time to fix things but chose not to.
Legally allowed to dissolved and constitutionally allowed to dissolve are two different things.
A total dissolution affects the 1st Amendment.
Sure the board got themselves in this mess, but that doesn’t mean a state level AG can violate the constitution because she hates their politics.
We are talking about the dissolution of a corporation that broke the law, not of a political party that someone doesn’t like. As far as I understand NY state law, A COURT OF LAW has very well the legal authority to dissolve the NRA! You do understand the concept of losing a constitutional right in a court of law after due process and being found guilty, right?
Note that the dissolution of the NRA was raised as a possible outcome of this mess over a year ago! I am honestly surprised that there haven’t been any criminal charges as well, but that may be just the right strategy for the NY AG. This civil lawsuit is going to run the NRA further into the ground.
No, we are talking about punishing 5 millions members for the actions of a few leaders. And this is ABSOLUTELY the dissolution of a political group that someone doesn’t like.
I don’t care what NY state law says a COURT OF LAW can do. I care what the Constitution says. I understand what a PERSON loses when the commit a crime. And those PEOPLE should be punished. But the people who have done nothing should NOT be punished. That is not justice, that is injustice.
Please, read the complaint. Then come back and propose how the NRA can be fixed in the sense that it is no longer a fraudulent organization violating the law without dissolving it. Good luck with that!
The NRA has put itself into this position, where the NY AG can argue that it is acting on behalf of the NRA members and dissolving the organization is the only way from stopping it from violating the law.
Easy, criminal charge those who defrauded the organization, ban all current board members and lawyers, and hold new elections.
That will fix the organization in the sense that its leaders are no longer doing fraudulent things (note the organization was never fraudulent, only a few leaders).
I never said the NRA didn’t put themselves into this position, and we are not arguing that. We are arguing the best course of action. The NY AG is clearly not acting on behalf of the NRA members because if it was it wouldn’t be proposing dissolving the entire organization as its absolutely not the only way from stopping it from violating the law. The NY AG is acting on behalf of anti-gunners, who want to silence a powerful group from speaking its mind because they don’t like th message.
Holding new elections is rather complicated due to the way the bylaws are written! Remember that the NRA leadership managed to write the bylaws in a way to benefit them. One of those election-related issues is who can be a candidate in the first place and how candidates can run by petition. The NRA leadership has put in “protections” to prevent the NRA being “infiltrated”. NRA Board approval is required for candidates to run!
And the court can overturn the bylaws due to the malfeasance of said boards.
REAL EASY LIKE.
You are asking the STATE to rewrite the NRA’s bylaws. In other words, you are asking the STATE to take over the NRA.
I am not. I’m asking the state to fix the bylaws before they were changed by bad actions.
REAL SIMPLE LIKE
Agree with this take. Of course we know the board has too many members (76!!) to exercise any proper level of oversight on the executive team by design. This is a known bad practice and it’s been this way for years at the NRA. We should not be surprised that when violating known good practice, the predictable consequences come home to roost. Your point that they knew the state was sniffing around makes it even more galling. – they still did not / could not brace for action appropriate in the face of that threat, which proper risk assessment just on the politics of the state should have identified decades earlier. (E.g. dot your I’s and cross your T’s on the books because you have a known hostile regulatory body – no different than a restaurant prepping for a health inspection when the inspector has it out for you)
How much confidence do you have that there’s any leadership team in the organization or any committee on the board with enough authority to mount a defense of the organization which would countenance the removal of Wayne LaPierre for cause if not also bring suit against him? As the past two years have shown us, Wayne has worked very hard to clear the organization of those roles, voices and institutional capabilities. Without those elements, which are very valuable in these conditions, I really worry that there is no “institutionâ€, but basically just a sole proprietor with access to the bank account.
If that assessment is correct, the NRA as a non-functioning corporation will be dog meat to the AG. I have seen from the inside the proper moves a company takes against similar challenges and the elements to pull it off – after what I’ve been reading for a couple/few years about the NRA scuttlebutt, I just can’t imagine those elements could be mustered there. It takes a nimble and independent board (strike one), experienced outside counsel (strike two), tons of internal discovery labor (lost without item one), and some good political friends to lube it all up.
Hoping for a rabbit to be pulled out of the hat. What does that look like from the outside? I think Wayne resigning; rumors of a thinning out of the board; obviously suit against Wayne, but that would be well after resignation; sadly – rumors of co-operation with the AG. Because what you have here is a need for governance that is outside the supposed capacity of existing bylaws – an externality: a boating accident, say, or a well-positioned friend to pull Wayne aside and explain that the National Rifle Association is bigger than him and needs to outlive him. Let the NRA set him up with a respectable but not outlandish severance and he does whatever he can do to aid corporate restructuring on way out, then agree to cooperate with ongoing investigations as needed. Only when the institution has room to maneuver will a defense be possible.
“…shame on us as members for looking the other way because times were good.”
I was screaming it to high heaven years ago and got told, repeatedly that we needed to support the NRA even with their glaring flaws.
Got to the point where I’d get fed up and let the membership lapse… just before I got voting rights.
Then I’d rejoin to get free entry to a gunshow… then lapse.
So I got a life membership to get that vote to try and change things. Like Cincinnati.
But by then they’d changed the rules so much my vote didn’t matter.
You do what you can. But you’ll never change anything from the outside, or by complaining, or becoming resigned to the suck. My sin was backing people who folded like a cheap house of cards when the organization needed them the most.
Exactly.
I’ve given them only enough money to be able to vote and try to make a difference.
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” – James Baldwin
“My sin was backing people who folded like a cheap house of cards when the organization needed them the most.”
Is it possible they saw that the scenarios they were dealing with, weren’t exactly as you perceived them, and the scenario they were dealing with, was something bigger than they could ever persuade the rank-and-file of? Maybe they saw that alone would instigate a factional fight that bore no direct relationship to what the rank-and-file believed the issues were — e.g., the RKBA?
If the NRA comes through this still mostly intact, I wish what ever new leadership results would have enough sense to FINALLY get the organizations Headquarters moved out of New York State. Move to Texas or some place more sensible.
“Move to Texas or some place more sensible.”
Hasn’t Texas been drifting purple in recent years? You may need to be more far sighted in the future. Including that there may be someday be no state where fraudsters and scammers are welcome, even if the people being defrauded don’t seem to mind.
LOL only in the minds of wishcasters. Texas is red and isn’t changing.
“Texas is red and isn’t changing.”
Forever is a long time.
I know all the limitations and shortcomings of polls, but FWIW Texas is now generally regarded as being in the tossup column in the Biden-Trump race, and I believe campaign spending and activity is showing that both sides aren’t chancing that it isn’t true. Someday non-delusional people are going to have to wake up to, that Trump has screwed up everything. Probably even the NRA/WLP would still be wallowing happily in their scams if they hadn’t thrown in with Trump. He woke up too many sleeping giants.
LOL that its being regarded as a tossup. Just like Wendy Davis was going to win Governor and Robert O’Rourke was going to win the Senate.
I just heard about the book by Republican Stuart Stevens, the chief strategist for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential bid, It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump but haven’t read it yet. In a review, the author was quoted as saying “The modern GOP never truly cared about the ideas it claimed to care about.”
It occurred to me that if you substituted “NRA” for “Republican Party” the sentiment would be equally valid.
“We’ve known for years a lot of this stuff was going on, and shame on us as members for looking the other way because times were good.”
There’s your problem, mister. Go back to the historical stone tablets of this blog and you will see people, including myself, pointing out the obvious–that when Obama came in office, the NRA started being driven more about $$ than actual gun rights. And every time, NRA supporters would respond with back-breaking twists in logic and wishful blindness.
I agree with you 90% of the time, but, as you say, NRA membership has been enablers of a criminal enterprise.
“when Obama came in office, the NRA started being driven more about $$ than actual gun rights.”
This is a place where I’d argue that correlation should not imply causation. Without implying any sort of apologies for Obama and his administration, I think the ground for what you’ve observed was laid at least several years before Obama-as-POTUS (or even candidate) arrived on the scene.
I saw signs of what I regarded as “infiltration” of the NRA at least 15 years ago. One of the characteristics of my hypothesized “infiltrators” is that they are shameless grifters. I’m sure WLP already had a working relationship with them, but they may have persuaded WLP & Co. they were worthy of bigger things than they were yet enjoying.
My hope is the courts will see this for what it is, and only go as far as removing the board and calling for new elections.
How often have courts removed only the Godfathers, while leaving the Families in place?
All the time. ALL THE TIME.
For those that are interested, here is the 164-page lawsuit: https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/final_nra_summons_complaint_08.06.20.pdf
From PART FIVE – DEFENDANTS’ VIOLATIONS OF NEW YORK LAW:
– Widespread Violations of Law of the NRA’s Senior Management under the Leadership
and Direction of Wayne LaPierre
– The NRA’s Use of Longtime Vendors and Consulting Agreements to Hide Improper Expenditures, Self-Dealing, and Related Party Transactions
– The Individual Defendants Received Excessive Compensation that the NRA Did Not Accurately Disclose
– The NRA’s Retaliation Against Dissidents on the Board
– The NRA Board’s Failures Resulting in Violations of Law
– The NRA’s Failure to Institute an Effective Compliance Program
– The NRA’s False Regulatory Filings
– The NRA’s Violation of its Duties under the New York Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act
Rob Pincus must be laughing his ass off right about now.