Still want to go down with the SS Wayne, NRA Board? The ship is a-seriously listing now mateys. Look at what the judge said! That filing literally accomplished nothing for them, except to give James more ammunition for her dissolution attempt.
It is time for Wayne to go. I deeply regret to my readers that I ever endorsed any of these fucking cult followers who are keeping their leader in power despite all sound judgement. It is pathetic. The sad thing is, many Board members are frankly too foolish to even know what the right thing is. For nearly all of the people I once endorsed, that is not the case. You know better. Yet you are letting him take the ship down. Throw him overboard and put someone competent at the helm before it is too late.
He (and the direction the NRA is going under him) has been a huge disappointment. I’ve been a member a long time, and let it lapse a couple years, only to join again recently for our gun club as the requirement, but that’s the only thing keeping the renewal.
It’s basically a tax at this point.
I’m planning on starting the conversation about the bylaw requirement with the Board shortly.
I wonder how many other clubs will do this same thing?
Honestly, I’m not even comfortable with my initial idea of having their postal match as an activity during the NSSM shoots because the $10 fees might as well be made out to Bill Brewer or Mike Bloomberg.
“I’m planning on starting the conversation about the bylaw requirement with the Board shortly.”
The demise of the NRA could moot your conversations. ;-)
But, FWIW, the last time there was a vote on that issue, the vote by the membership was 2 – 1 in favor of staying with the NRA. Meaning that even in those days of high NRA popularity, one member in three opposed mandatory NRA membership.
At the time I favored the idea of requiring membership in, or material support for, some pro-gun organization, but that was before I had lost confidence in all the others.
I’ve been wondering who I should be directing funds to. I’ve heard the GOA referred to as the Pratt family scholarship fund, and the SAF seems to be willing to compromise. But what about the FPC? They’re the ones who seem to be drumming up the most publicity within the community.
“But what about the FPC?”
The president of FPC is Brandon Combs, who also chairs (or chaired?) the California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees (CAFFL). The only negative thing I could suggest is that the interests of dealers may not always be the same as the interests of individual gun owners.
That said, I have heard numerous complaints of the FPC really exploiting the use of email in constantly dunning for donations and apparently selling their list to other organizations. I have bad memories of working with similar email mavens, who would kill to beg, borrow or steal others’ email lists, and FPC’s website has some features that are turnoffs for me, but then, I can be an odd duck. But, they seem just a tad too slick for my tastes. I sense a profitable formula developed in California, then expanded to the rest of the country.
I saw where FPC stated intentions to “coordinate” with Gottlieb Enterprises, SAF and CCRKBA, who are past masters at turning a profit from the 2A.
Spent my life working for boards, mostly in direct contact, and I have never seen a cluster like this. When is the board going to figure out they have been lied to repeatedly.
The NRA is only screwed if the board doesn’t act. Fire Wayne and the rest of the executives. Settle with the NYAG to prevent dissolution (I highly doubt that’s possible anyway, but should work to prevent it just in case). Move to Texas. Problem solved.
But the board needs to wake up.
I have observed, more than once, that some organizations will evolve a “culture”, and then that culture will survive even after a 100 percent turnover of personnel. (That is, if the turnover is phased over time, and doesn’t occur all at once.)
What I’m getting at is, I don’t have the statistics on how long most NRA Board members have been around, but I have an impression most have not been around that long. Meaning they are relative latecomers who, if anything, have adapted to a latter day culture of winking at crookedness. And, probably, a culture of sloth on the part of the board.
If any part of that is true, firing the executives and moving to Texas is probably not going to solve anything, for very long.
I doubt she’s going to settle. She’s definitely not going to like to move to Texas. My guess is she’ll drag this out as long as she can. I think you for a New York Court is going to be hard-pressed to find for dissolution. What’s the damage being done just buy this case being active is extraordinary.
The NYAG will not settle. They smell blood in the water and taking down the NRA will make those invloved celebrities in Democrat and progressive circles.
I guarantee they have had people poking around for years and have been waiting for the perfect time to act. Theywant to silence gun owners and 2A advocates and the NRA has been the main target for decades. The dissolution of the NRA has been a major dream of the left since we stared wining our rights back.
All y’all saying the board needs to get its act together are smoking something I’m not privy to. I’ve been in support roles for companies (for-profit ones) facing existential crisis because of executive misdeeds and the only thing that’s saved them is an agile, earnest, competent board with competent external support (meaning serious lawyers from politically connected firms, and their support crews). How a non-profit board made up of _scores_ of nincompoops like Ted Nugent is supposed magic up a spine, competence, and mass unity in the 11th hour to save the org would be a Christmas miracle.
The only thing I’m putting faith in is the long-shot hope that some prominent (wealthy) members assemble some representation for the membership and bring a claim against the leadership team and the board. Maybe that will let us salvage the nameplate of the NRA.
Tell me I’m wrong, ‘cause I’ll listen.
You are absolutely correct.
“How a non-profit board made up of _scores_ of nincompoops like Ted Nugent is supposed magic up a spine, competence, and mass unity in the 11th hour to save the org would be a Christmas miracle.”
There are bits of truth in this, but not at the first part. There are competent members of the board if they choose to be competent and grow the spine. I have little faith they will, which is the part where I agree with you.
However, your example of people like Nugent doesn’t really ring true. Those aren’t people who are paying attention or showing up for votes to even be relevant. Therefore, they effectively aren’t on the Board other than taking up a seat. There were only 49 BoD at the major meeting to endorse the bankruptcy plan based on the vote tally presented in court (48 + Carolyn Meadows who presumably didn’t vote as presiding officer).
I’m not sure you’re wrong on the only likely outcome to save the organization as it stands. I just think the focus on the dead weight of the Board puts the attention on the wrong people who both need to be held accountable for the likely end of NRA under their decisions and also on who to focus on voting against.
Great points.
When a board’s quorum requirements exceed about 15, I start to doubt whether the board was even constructed in good faith (i.e. designed to be toothless). A board much larger than that is going to have a lot of natural friction and inertia issues retarding its decision-making abilities, even if you have a few people lit up and ready to do God’s work. Here’s to hoping though.
I think it can depend on the board’s purpose and how it has come to be structured.
I know of another group with a bigger national board than NRA, but they have competitive elections each year for a decent number of the seats. And the process of getting into the seats that aren’t directly elected is usually pretty intense to the point where even the nominating committee process is a competitive election. You have to want it and understand how to put up with lots of bullshit to legit earn support and turnout.
In theory, NRA could justify a large board because of the diversity of specialty knowledge needed to give good insight and guidance into the various areas it should be working. There should be people whose specialty is legislative, direct political/election action, a variety of shooting sports, grassroots/engagement from the various states, collecting/preservation, etc.
There’s so much that NRA used to be active in, but they haven’t kept up the connections and community. As someone involved with a 100% (though not likely for long) gun club looking for activities to offer during National Shooting Sports Month and general inspiration for things in a newsletter and also to do during an ammo shortage, where is NRA?
Every “oh, this sounds like it could be fun and would get people out” activity I’ve found from archives, gone. Maybe it’s because it wasn’t really fun, but I don’t think so in talking about it with other members and shooters. It’s because the communities that handled the work died and no one knows how to bring it back.
So big isn’t necessarily bad, but when toxic people took over, it was made worse.
The NRA screwed itself. It became a haven for celebrity feel good positions and the executives became greedy con men. Wayne was the front man and then he got too greedy and the others looting the till got greedy also. So the thing falls down. Get rid of the greedy conmen and then pay off the claims. The bankruptcy decision was proper in my opinion.
The NRA has two main focus, Training and gun rights. Training they are very good and that is why clubs force mandated membership , which I do not like.
NRA needs to get lean fast. Get a CEO that is business oriented and lean the organization. Get rid of most of the board that is just a feel good position. Also move to a better state .
I don’t have a lot of faith. If Letitia James wanted to, she could probably save NRA in short order by firing all the management and calling for special elections to replace the Board. But she won’t do that. Why would she do that? NRA is self immolating.
“Training they are very good and that is why clubs force mandated membership. . .”
I disagree. I don’t think there has ever been a practical reason for clubs mandating NRA membership.
Maybe I’m reading too much of myself into this opinion, but in my experience the NRA used to have a quasi-religious, infallible status among the gun owning community. To support the NRA was analogous to saluting the flag or standing for the National Anthem. A club required NRA membership for the same reason the Ancient Order of Hibernians required members to be Good Catholics with all sacraments up-to-date.
That also involved a big dose of virtue-signaling. My club’s print-newsletter used to come with every issue proudly shouting “100 Percent NRA!” on its outside cover.
“in my experience the NRA used to have a quasi-religious, infallible status among the gun owning community.”
When I first became an NRA Annual Member, you needed the endorsement of a LEO, commissioned military officer, or similar law-and-order oriented public official to join. I used a local detective who was attempting an early-’60s version of “community policing”, trying to befriend my young crowd in hopes we’d rat out our friends. The subtext to that story is, you have to appreciate how motivated I was, that I voluntarily sought out a cop.
That also was in the era when you had to be an NRA member to purchase DCM (which later became the CMP) firearms. In my time those were $20 M-1 Carbines, and I think 1911s were also available, for $25 – $30 dollars. I already had a liberated M-1 Carbine, and wasn’t in the market for a 1911 at the time, so I never took advantage of the program.
The point of the DCM story is, that at one time the NRA served de facto as an agent/administrator for the federal government, and had a quasi-governmental/military panache. It has been suggested that in 1968, it was hinted to the NRA that they would also get to administer GCA ’68, and that was why they didn’t resist the legislation. But to the best of my knowledge that was just rumor.