Posted on 07/03/2019 4:27:17 AM PDT by marktwain
Many of my friends are calling me wanting to know what the hell is going on with NRA, as if I ought to know. But all I know is from past observation and from what I’m reading almost daily in newspapers or internet blogs. Mind you, I’m on the outside: I am not, and never have been, on the NRA Board of Directors. But to try to answer them I wrote this encapsulation. Here’s how the situation looks to me. If what follows is not substantially true or seems unfair, I hope somebody on the inside hastens to correct me. Because it’s depressing.
It’s been an open secret for more than 20 years (since at least the 1990s) that an outside public relations firm, Ackerman McQueen Inc. (around NRA headquarters, commonly called “Ack-Mac”) enjoyed a favored and protected, if not inviolate, relationship with NRA. The owners of Ack-Mac were close friends and associates of NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. He handed them major roles formulating, directing and performing many NRA operations for which Ack-Mac and its associated companies bill NRA millions of dollars annually — in 2017 alone, over $40 million. To ensure their position by enhancing his, Ack-Mac created a persona for LaPierre as NRA’s public face; his strident, increasingly right-wing rhetoric espoused in NRA’s name was shaped and scripted by Ack-Mac. In turn he fended off sporadic calls to reduce Ack-Mac’s penetration of NRA. LaPierre and Ack-Mac became practically indistinguishable.
This special relationship and its financial intertwining were largely opaque, fully appreciated only within inner circles of the 76-member Board of Directors. Though payments to Ack-Mac accounted for a large chunk of NRA’s budget until recently Ack-Mac was unmentioned in annual reports or minutes of the Board’s meetings, it was as if Ack-Mac didn’t exist.
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
There is no way to vet this account to know if it is entirely true or correct. Much of what is said is true; it is anonymous.
I know the people at Ammoland. They would not have published this if they thought it was false or a con-job.
Powerful people and forces on the left want to destroy the NRA as a political force, especially before the 2020 elections.
Of transparency at the NRA - I have not seen any.
Worth reading to have some understanding of what is going on at the NRA.
Better be fixed quickly or it will become the sister organization to the Clinton Foundation.
Major revenue and member upswings during the Obama years. Money corrupts.
This piece is as useless and worthless as any story anywhere on any subject which is based on anonymous sources using unsourced quotes.
As opposed to soothing left-wing rhetoric we read every day in the MSM?
There is zero transparency.
I know. My antenna went up at that line too.
When it comes to this much money, strange bedfellows are made. All the people involved have one goal: to separate you from your money. The NRA uses the sky is falling argument to suck in money when a Democrat is in the White House. Then they get fat and spend millions on PR and lawyers. Now it seems the party is over. F ‘em.
Yes, mine too.
There are many allegations in the piece.
Hard to know just what is true and false.
Some of the allegations are true.
But that is how good propaganda works.
The biggest problem, imho, is that LaPierre has nearly all the power.
All of the 1977 reforms, which were meant to keep the power of the NRA in the hands of dedicated members, have been neutered.
Once upon a time, I gave my mom a gift membership in the NRA. She got really mad at me because they bombarded her with mail asking for money.
Too much power for too long. 8 yr terms should be...absolute power corrupts and power corrupts absolutely.
That picture of Wayne at the link is not exactly the most flattering one they could have used... LOL...
Too much patriot talk going on.
“Powerful people and forces on the left want to destroy the NRA as a political force, especially before the 2020 elections.”
It’s already destroyed. Most people just don’t realize it yet.
Proud to say I've never given a single penny to the NRA. Frankly, just looking at Wayne LaPierre tells me he's a freaking corrupt weasel and I want no part of any organization that he, milquetoast POS that he is, is in the leadership of.
All the NRA has done over the last two decades as best I can remember, is negotiate our gun rights away. The NRA can KMA. Just like the AARP, they will never, ever get a single penny from me.
Whether this is accurate or not all this infighting and negative news paints the NRA in a bad light. I am a member and instructor and have been for many years. The NRA needs to get its act together, stop this petty crap and become the organization it once was with a focus on protecting the 2nd amendment.
The press eats this stuff up then writes stories that further degrade the impression of the NRA to the public - a public who ALREADY has negative views of the NRA thanks to the press.
The NRA needs to get clean and get public with their finances. Wayne should probably go as should most of the board of directors - I didn’t join the NRA so Wayne could wear the latest fashions, to pay an attorney 18 million a year nor to support untold others who are enriching themselves on the members’ dime.
Understandably many here are rabid members who will continue to support the NRA without question - but in the field where boots hits the ground all these allegations and negative press are causing the public to doubt the legitimacy of the organization.
I for one and looking for another organization to take up the cause...
“his strident, increasingly right-wing rhetoric espoused in NRA’s name.....”
>
smell the CNN.
1. The allegations are reminiscent of the questions asked about The Tea Party Movement.
2. I fault the NRA for a cynical opposition to the Article V movement in which they would sacrifice the whole of the Bill of Rights for the Second Amendment. In the end, they might well lose both. The loss of either would not be a pity, but a tragedy.
As the article suggests, the last clue for the membership that something was badly wrong in Virginia was the NRA WINE CLUB. WTF??!!
Maybe the smartest guy in the whole thing was Pete Brownell, who just said "Screw this, I'm out of here."
Ollie, OTOH, (with all due respect) screwed the pooch. All he accomplished was to get himself caught up in a soap opera of self-dealing and conflict of interest, along with his henchman, Board Member Dan Boren. The fallout from this will go on and on for the rest of Ollie's life.
Right now I've got a renewal invoice in my inbox. I'll probably send it in, only because the local club I belong to requires it for access to one of their (our) facilities. The NRA will be getting a letter, though, (which will of course go in the trash), but so will my local club.
My own opinion is to just burn it down. I believe people will be aghast at what the NY AG turns up in his politically motivated investigation. Burn it to the ground and let Chris Cox, Pete Brownell, and other responsible people start anew... quickly. It's been a long time coming, frankly.
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