Ronnie Barrett For EVP?

I just got a copy of the Nominating Committee report. In addition to Bob Barr for President, Tom King and Blaine Wade are nominated as 1st and 2nd VP respectively. As rumored, David Coy was sacrificed.

The big surprise is Ronnie Barrett for EVP. I am sure the argument will be that he has the requisite business experience to run a large organization such as the NRA thanks to his history as CEO of Barrett Firearms Manufacturing. Now that he has sold that company to the Australians, he is free to take on other challenges. Not being in the room, we don’t know if he is being pitched as a temporary fix for the next couple of years or not. He is 70 years old so that might be the case. My objection to Barrett would revolve around him being a “Friend of Wayne” and it gives the anti’s more ammunition to accuse the NRA of just being a tool of the firearms industry. If the NRA was going to take a former CEO of a firearms company as the EVP, I think Mike Fifer of Ruger would have been a better choice.

I would also note that not one single reformer is nominated for the Executive Committee. It the Old Guard or the Cabal in its composition. I am a bit surprised that Marion Hammer was nominated for it as she had broken with the Cabal. Also, I see Joel Friedman who couldn’t even win the 76th Director position but only made it back to the Board by the resignation of Carl Rowan, Jr. is given a seat on it.

In other nominations, both John Frazer and Sonya Rowling keep their jobs with Bill Brewer’s guy Robert Mensinger joining as the Chief Compliance Officer. Seems like a good enough pick but he is tainted by association with Bill Brewer. As to Frazer, I perceive him as a nice – but weak – guy who is in over his head. In no other non-profit or corporation would the General Counsel still have the job after a jury found him guilty of violating his fiduciary duties and submitting false filings to a governmental agency. Rowling is, like Frazer, someone who in the end who will do what they are told. Witness the cutting of a check to Brewer’s law firm this weekend even though it devastates the NRA’s finances.

Here is the full report. Make your own decisions about it. In my opinion, it is a big FU to those who want change, those who want transparency, and those who think the members actually count.