Month: August 2019

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NRA Wins Some, Loses Some In Lawsuit Hearing

August 29, 2019 by 1 Comment

The NRA v. Ackerman-McQueen case had a hearing today in Virginia. Both sides won a little something in the judge’s rulings.

First, in the win for the NRA, Wayne LaPierre won’t have to appear for a deposition in early September. The judge ruled that it should be delayed until the week of September 23rd.

According to CNN, Michael Collins, a partner with Brewer, Attorneys and Counselers, said, “We are pleased to see the deposition of Mr. LaPierre will be scheduled in a manner that accommodates him and his many obligations to the NRA and its members.”

The other side of the coin was that the judge agreed with the attorneys for Ackerman McQueen and limited the documents that could be seen by William Brewer III and his PR staff.

In Wednesday’s hearing, Ackerman’s attorney, David Dickieson, argued that the communications shop within Brewer’s firm poses a direct competitive threat to Ackerman’s public affairs business and that handing over proprietary information to Brewer’s public relations team would allow them to siphon away business from Ackerman.

Ack-Mac also noted in court that they had laid off, furloughed, or terminated approximately 50 employees dedicated to the NRA account. They have also closed their Alexandria, Virginia office.

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A Great Response To Corporate Virtue Signaling

August 28, 2019 by 1 Comment

Jim Shepherd of the Outdoor Wires posted an editorial today concerning corporate virtue signaling. The grist for his editorial was something that took place at the most recent meeting of the Business Roundtable. At that event, a number of mega-corporation CEOs signed a document pledging to shift corporate governance away from shareholder value.

Yep, they decided that being virtuous would be more important (to them) than the long-accepted dictum that the goal of a company is to make money for its owners. Granted, the document they signed was described as “high level and low on specifics” it is most assuredly indicative of the current social and business environment.


Not presuming to think along the high-minded ridges of such industry leaders, I’ve never known a company to suddenly decide business-as-usual was no longer acceptable. Honestly, this kind of talk seldom passes my personal “smell test”. It’s my experience that when someone who makes millions of dollars annually starts telling me what’s best for the rest of us, I start sniffing. Especially when I start hearing a mix of solid thinking interspersed with comments about “what type of society is possible.”

I agree with Jim on this. We have started to see high technology companies in the social media realm decide that advertising and posts of a conservative bent must be censored or rejected. We have seen certain large banks try to tell firearms manufacturers how to run their legitimate businesses. The list goes on.

I have always been something of a contrarian. Thus, it was refreshing to see a company that hasn’t bought on to the “guns are evil” mantra. Jim points out that a company called Defenseshield Inc. that has gone the opposite way.

Not everyone, fortunately, is cut from that same bland cloth. Yesterday, I was forwarded a release from Defenseshield, Inc., a “preeminent designer, manufacturer, and seller of armor systems to the US Military, Federal agencies, the nuclear industry, airports and courthouses.”
Their CEO, Collins White, irritated at the latest rounds of “virtue signaling” in corporate America, announced some “pro-constitutional measures for all Defenseshield employees:”


1. Every day is “Bring a gun to work” day.
2. 1-year membership in the NRA.
3. Lifetime membership to Gun Owners of America.
4. Free FFL firearms transfers.
5. Pay for firearms training.
6. Pay for any permits that allow you to own or carry a firearm.
7. Pay entry fees to any firearms competition
8. Pay entry fees to any gun show
9. Match contributions to NRA, GOA, USA (Olympic) Shooting, 4H shooting, Scouting shooting programs.
10. $100 annual match toward firearms range or club membership.
11. $20 for every pair of jeans you buy that aren’t Levi’s.


“The attack on the Constitution by elite left-wing billionaires cannot be tolerated,” White said, “I left New York when the so-called safe act made many of my guns, accessories and magazines illegal. I’ve relocated to Florida where the environment for business and the freedoms granted by the constitution is not under such a rabid assault. I invite all corporate leaders to stand with me in upholding the constitution, and to invest in the future of America.”

Collins White is my kind of CEO. While I am not in their customer base and have little need for their product, if I was I’d be looking to them to fulfill it.

I only wish more CEOs and more companies were like Mr. White of Defenseshield. If you would like to let them know you appreciate their standing up for what is right, you can contact them at  info[@]defenshield.com

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Wayne Needs A Better Attorney

August 26, 2019 by 4 Comments

The New York Daily News is not a fan of the NRA. They have made that very clear over the years. They make that very clear when they refer to the NRA’s defunct CarryGuard insurance program as “murder insurance”.

The context was that investigators with the New York Department of Financial Services served a subpoena upon NRA Executive VP Wayne LaPierre. They want to know what Wayne knows or knew about the marketing of CarryGuard. It should come as no surprise that New York officials would want to put Wayne on the record with a sworn deposition.

I can think of a number of reasons that they would do this. They would include harassment, payback for the Federal suit against Gov. Cuomo and former DFS head Maria Vullo, an opportunity to catch Wayne in a lie, and the list goes on.

What struck me about this article was this:

The gun-rights group’s top lawyer said it was “surprised” by the subpoena and noted that LaPierre has “virtually no information” beyond what others have already told investigators.

“The NRA believes the ‘investigation’ was blatantly political in its motivation,” said William A. Brewer III, lead counsel to the NRA, in a statement. “Nonetheless, the NRA has attempted to cooperate with reasonable requests by (New York).”

Any competent attorney should have expected this subpoena. To be surprised by what should have been a foregone conclusion indicates either Brewer is incompetent or that he is trying to create a smokescreen. I know which way I’m leaning but for the moment I’ll reserve judgement.

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Quote Of The Day

August 26, 2019 by

The quote of the day comes from the Firearms and Politics mailing list. C. D. Tavares, a longtime poster on the list, had this to say about Wayne LaPierre and the most recent purges.

When the henhouse needs guarding, should we be amazed to see the wolves throwing their support behind the lamest dog left on the farm?

Our enemies in the gun prohibition industry have seen this and have sent out lots of fundraising emails saying the NRA is in trouble. You just know they are secretly wishing that Wayne will keep holding on to his job until it is pried from his cold dead hands.

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More On The Purges

August 25, 2019 by

The Washington Post has more on the purges at the NRA. It includes comments from Wayne LaPierre, Carolyn Meadows, and Charles Cooper among others. The comments are actually more interesting than the supposed smoking gun texts that were reported in the New York Times.

From Wayne:

“It disturbs me that the NRA’s supposed ‘friends’ — a man I personally recruited to be president of the NRA, our trusted ad agency of four decades, a couple of our attorneys, and a chief lieutenant — would engage in this obviously premeditated extortion scheme to harm our association,” LaPierre said.

Wayne continues to peddle the mythical “extortion” meme as well as pushing the supposed “coup” theme. As to the extortion claim, all we have is the word of Wayne and that of a convicted felon.

From NRA President Carolyn Meadows who thinks Wayne is just the bee’s knees or something like that:

Carolyn Meadows, the NRA’s current president, said in a statement there has been a “malicious smear campaign against the NRA and our leaders.”


“Kernels of ‘truth’ were stripped of context, wrapped in lies, and peddled to the media and unsuspecting audiences,” she said.

Remember that old legal saying that the truth is the absolute defense against libel? If all that has been reported had been a malicious smear (or libel), don’t you think William Brewer III would have started legal proceedings by now so as to earn even more money?

Charles Cooper of Cooper and Kirk did release a statement. He said in the Post:

He “adhered to the highest standards of professionalism and loyalty.”


He said his allegiance was to the nonprofit group, “not to any individual officers or directors of the organization.”


“At every turn, I have advised my client as to my best judgment of the steps that should be taken to advance and protect the best interest of the NRA itself,” Cooper added, declining to comment further.

Given Mr. Cooper’s past positions as both a Supreme Court clerk and as an Assistant Attorney General during the Reagan Administration, I would have expected nothing less from him. He has represented the NRA and fought for the Second Amendment for three decades. There are places his dismissal may well have dire consequences for gun rights.

On Mr. Cooper’s legal ability, Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation noted, ” Charles Cooper and his law firm have done excellent work on Second Amendment issues.”

The key thing to notice about these dismissals and departures is that the attorneys involved have in one way or another crossed William Brewer or are thought to have crossed him. Given he has Wayne’s ear and feeds his paranoid delusions, it is no wonder any possible competitor gets the boot. The worst part about this is that every one of these departures only weakens the NRA when it comes to its core mission of protecting the Second Amendment. It makes one wonder if former NRA Board attorney Steve Hart was correct in his speculation that Brewer could be a “Manchurian candidate”.

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The Purge Continues At The NRA

August 23, 2019 by 5 Comments

The ascendancy of William Brewer and his law firm at the NRA is almost complete. Danny Hakim of the New York Times reported that Charles Cooper of Cooper and Kirk had been dismissed as an outside counsel to the NRA. Cooper and his firm had handled much of the NRA’s lawsuits in the past number of years.

Now Mr. LaPierre is continuing to purge opponents. On Thursday, the N.R.A. dismissed its longtime outside counsel, Charles J. Cooper, the chairman of the Washington law firm Cooper & Kirk, people with knowledge of the decision said. A second outside counsel and a top in-house counsel resigned. The departures come after an internal inquiry showed that the lawyers were involved in an effort to undermine Mr. LaPierre.

From what I have gathered from multiple sources, the “internal inquiry” consists of Josh Powell and William Brewer dragging people into a room and interrogating them for hours on end. If your inquiry team consists of a business failure and an attorney under an ethical cloud the results will be whatever is most likely to feed Wayne LaPierre’s paranoid fantasy of the day.

But as the informercial says, wait! It gets better.

The N.R.A. is also considering halting payments to its former second in command, Christopher Cox, who left in June but is still on the payroll, said the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal matters.

The article continues with the assertion that Cooper, Cox, and others were secretly working with AckMac as part of the supposed coup to depose Wayne. Hakim in his story says he is working with documents that have come to light as a result of the NRA’s lawsuit against Oliver North. If I had to hazzard a guess, I’d say the documents came from Brewer and his firm as they seem to have Hakim on speed dial.

Hakim concludes his story by writing (and including a link to my blog’s namesake):

The unraveling of lawyers, guns and money coincides with the departures of half a dozen board members in recent weeks. But Mr. LaPierre remains center stage, as polarizing as ever.

“Donald Trump and Wayne LaPierre are made for each other,” said Peter Ambler, executive director of Giffords, the gun control group started by former Representative Gabrielle Giffords. He called them “mirror images” engulfed in “allegations of corruption and mismanagement.”

But Todd Rathner, a member of the N.R.A.’s board, said, “Wayne is leading and proving that he has the political juice to get the job done.”

 Given the White House’s backtracking from what Wayne reported of his conversation with President Trump, I’d question Rathner’s last statement. He might have the juice to purge his supposed enemies within the NRA but I sincerely doubt his political effectiveness on the national scene anymore.

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San Jose Mayor Proposes “Gun Liability Insurance”

August 23, 2019 by 1 Comment

Sam Liccardo is the mayor of San Jose, California. He proposed that gun owners living in the city must buy gun liability insurance or pay a fee “to cover the emergency response and medical care for victims of ‘gun violence’ (sic).” San Jose would be the first city in the United States to require such insurance for the exercise of an enumerated civil right.

https://www.richardmeier.com/?projects=san-jose-city-hall-2

As reported by Insurance Business Magazine:

He likened his proposed mandatory gun liability insurance to state-enforced auto insurance requirements, stating: “We see in the context, for example, of auto insurance, how insurance can provide a motivator for safe conduct […] Similarly, we could do the same with gun ownership — how you might reduce your premium, for example, by taking a gun safety course or by having a gun safe or by ensuring that you only have guns with child-safe locks.” …

In the interview with FOX Business, Liccardo said the insurance is not intended to “seek [out and] identify all the gun owners” in the city. Rather, he hopes it will address the significant cost of gun violence to California taxpayers.


He said: “All public costs for everything from emergency response to emergency room treatment — all the costs that result from the human harm of gun violence. It seems to me that those costs should be properly allocated and distributed. Insurance is one way of doing that.”

In essence, what Mayor Liccardo is seeking to do is impose a tax on the right of self-defense paid for by the law-abiding. This becomes much clearer when you read the actual key elements of his plan from the city’s website.

These include:

  1. Liability insurance to cover negligent discharges and “for the intentional acts of third parties who steal, borrow, or otherwise acquire the gun. “
  2. If insurance is not available, then it would be a per-household fee for gun owners to participate in a public compensation pool.
  3. A gun and ammunition tax which he hopes becomes a regional tax.
  4. A “consent to search” plan in conjunction with the SJPD involving parental permission to search homes and confiscate firearms owned by dependents.
  5. A bounty program for anonymous tipsters who identify “unlawful possessors” of firearms.
  6. Legislative advocacy to promote his liability insurance plan for state-wide adoption.

For perspective on this from the insurance industry I went to the Insurance Information Institute to see what they had to say about “gun liability insurance”. They note first that insurers rarely offer separate “gun liability insurance”. A person would have some coverage for non-intentional acts from their homeowner’s insurance as well as from any supplemental or umbrella liability policies. This would cover negligence but might not cover acts of self-defense. Coverage for Mayor Liccardo’s “intentional acts of third parties” would most certainly not be covered.

Coverage for firearms is usually mentioned only in the property section of a homeowner’s policy. Since firearms are not mentioned in the liability section, it is implied that since it is not excluded that it would be covered.

There are exclusions:

Not all accidents are covered, per the terms of the policy. For example, if a relative living at the same home were accidentally shot, the accident would not appear to be covered.


The policy explicitly says it will not cover “expected or intended injury.” The policy is designed to cover accidents, not intentional, criminal actions, such as a homicide or an attempted homicide. A mass shooting would not appear to be covered. A critical point is that covering an intentional, illegal act like armed assault would violate standard underwriting principles.


Although acts that are intended or expected to cause harm are generally excluded, some policies restore coverage in cases where bodily injury or property damage results from the use of “reasonable force” by an insured to protect persons or property.

The Insurance Information Institute goes on to say you might get coverage through a group personal coverage policy with someone like, you know, the National Rifle Association. The unintended consequence of Mayor Liccardo’s attempt to kill gun ownership and, by extension, the gun culture could be an exponential growth in the number of NRA members in his community. I’ll bet you he didn’t consider that when he made this proposal!

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Remember, They Have To Lie To Win

August 21, 2019 by

Stephen Gutowski of the Free Beacon alerted readers to this on Twitter. Shannon Watts, the head Demanding Mommie, intentionally misquoted Marion Hammer who was testifying on the proposed constitutional amendment in Florida that would effectively ban all semiautomatic firearms.

At a Tallahassee hearing on prohibiting assault weapons, @NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer said: “How do you tell a 10-year-old girl that the rifle she got for Christmas is an assault weapon and she has to give it up or risk arrest on felony charges?” #flapol https://t.co/aPVGTNYbx1— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) August 16, 2019

Marion Hammer is not my favorite person as anyone who has read this blog knows. However, I happen to believe that you really should quote what the person says accurately regardless of whether you agree with her or not.

In this case, what Marion really said is much more innocuous. Indeed, I think only the true believer gun prohibitionists would object to it.

From the Tampa Bay Times with the actual quote:

“How do you tell a 10-year-old little girl who got a Ruger 10/22 with a pink stock for her birthday that her rifle is an assault weapon and she has to turn it over to government or be arrested for felony possession?”

Shannon Watts knows how to play to an audience. If she has to lie as she plays the audience, so be it. Case in point -she was in Charlotte this past week for an event at Johnson C. Smith University billed as a “community conversation” on “gun violence” (sic). My friend Josette from Grass Roots North Carolina was in the audience and heard Watts say, ” there is NO background check to purchase an AR.” I’m sure some in the audience might believe that but it is an out and out lie. If called out on it by you or me, we’d be accused of bullying the “stay-at-home mom of five” which, by the way, is another of her inaccuracies.

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Richard Childress Resigns From NRA Board

August 20, 2019 by

NASCAR legend and NRA Board member Richard Childress has resigned from the NRA Board of Directors effective yesterday. He served as First VP until late April of this year. He along with Oliver North were asking the difficult questions about finance and the Brewer law firm. His resignation is the fifth this year and the sixth since the 2018 NRA Annual Meeting if you count Pete Brownell.

Richard Childress at the 2019 Annual Meeting – from CNN

His letter below says he needs to fully focus on his businesses which include his race team and a winery in North Carolina. His business acumen and his fund raising abilities will be missed by the NRA. It is my understanding that he is the reason Bass Pro Shops and their Cabelas subsidiary are such large sponsors especially at the Annual Meetings.