Month: April 2025

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2025 NRA Elected Committees And Appointees

April 30, 2025 by 2 Comments

One of the key agenda items on Monday’s Board of Directors meeting was the election of officers and election of members of various committees of the board. The latter is different from a regular committee because under New York Non-Profit Corporation Law, committees of the board have the delegated authority of the Board of Directors and can bind the Board. The committees elected during this meeting include the Executive Committee, the Nominating Committee, and the Audit Committee. Also elected were trustees for the Special Contribution Fund (aka Whittington Center) and the NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund.

NRA In Danger has covered the election of the officers so I would refer you there for more details. Suffice it to say, it was a good day there for NRA 2.0.

With the exception of the Audit Committee and the trustees of the NRA CRDF, all were highly contested and all involved multiple rounds of voting as each person elected must have achieved a majority during that round of voting. For example, if a round of voting had 64 ballots cast, only candidates who achieved 32 votes or more would have been elected. Thus, if the leading candidate got 31 votes, they were not elected. What usually happened is that the lower vote getters would voluntarily remove themselves from contention and we would have another round of voting.

Italics indicate ex officio and names in bold generally indicate they are and were part of NRA 2.0.

Executive Committee

  • Bill Bachenberg* – Chairman
  • Mark Vaughan*
  • Rocky Marshall*
  • Thomas Arvas
  • Bob Barr
  • Charles Beers III
  • Anthony Colandro
  • Todd Ellis
  • Al Hammond
  • Craig Haggard
  • Maria Heil
  • Charles Hiltunen
  • Robert Mansell
  • Buz Mills
  • Janet Nyce
  • James Porter II
  • David Raney
  • Barbara Rumpel
  • Amanda Suffecool
  • Craig Swartz
  • Linda Walker
  • Bruce Widener
  • Robert Wos

The Nominating Committee is composed of six Board members and three Non-Board members. All seats on the Nominating Committee were won by those proposed by the NRA 2.0 side. Italics indicate Non-Board members.

Nominating Committee

  • Cam Edwards 
  • Al Hammond
  • Maria Heil
  • Robbie Love
  • Mitzy McCorvey
  • Buz Mills
  • Janet Nyce
  • Susan Springhorn
  • Robert Wos

Special Contribution Fund (Whittington Center) Trustees for Terms Ending in 2028

  • Al Hammond 
  • Robert Mansell
  • Barbara Rumpel
  • Craig Swartz

NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund Trustees for Terms Ending in 2028

Finally, there is the Audit Committee which is now a committee of the board as specified by Item 7 in the Final Order of the New York trial. Each member of the committee was proposed, one by one, by President Bill Bachenberg. After each proposed member was named, the Board had the opportunity to accept or reject the candidate. No one was rejected. Once all five were seated, the Audit Committee officially became an elected committee of the board.

Audit Committee

  1. Charlie Beers
  2. Rocky Marshall
  3. Jonathan Goldstein
  4. Theresa Inacker
  5. John Richardson

Obviously, you will notice that I was elected to the Audit Committee. The best way I can put it is that I wasn’t looking for the Audit Committee but the Audit Committee was looking for me. I would also like to point out that while Charlie Beers has not usually been associated with “the reformers”, his was the first name proposed for this committee at a caucus of the NRA 2.0 team given the exemplary job he has done on the committee previously.

The reformers are firmly in charge and it is up to us to revitalize, reinvigorate, and reform the NRA. You saw it at the Meeting of Members and you can see the results from the Board meeting. It isn’t perfect but it is more than a good start. Last year was the start and now we are moving into the next stage where we solidified the leadership changes begun in 2024. We still have a long road in front of us and need, as Frank Tait has written, to show members and potential members that there is a value in being a NRA member again. I think there is or I would haven’t bothered running.

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The Fall Of Saigon Plus 50 Years

April 30, 2025 by

One thing I have found about getting older is that events that happened even half a century ago seem almost like yesterday. The Fall of Saigon is one of those events. Perhaps it was because it was an event closer to me than most as my father served two tours of duty in South Vietnam.

I came across an interesting website that details the Fall of Saigon from the perspective of the US Diplomatic Corps. It is part of the National Museum of American Diplomacy and is well worth reading.

My friend Danny posted this to Twitter/X today. It was the last message sent out from the US Embassy in Saigon.

It was hoped for a long time that the evacuation at the Fall of Saigon was the last of its sort. As we unfortunately saw during the withdrawal from Afghanistan, it was not.

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Trump’s Message To NRA Meeting Of Members

April 27, 2025 by 1 Comment

As I noted in my report on the Meeting of Members, President Trump sent a video message. He was in Italy for the funeral of Pope Francis.

Thanks to John Petrolino of Bearing Arms who sent me this link, you can now see the roughly 2 minute message.

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Charlie Hiltunen Elected 76th Director

April 27, 2025 by 2 Comments

The final seat on the NRA Board of Directors was filled yesterday as the election for 76th Director closed. Charlie Hiltunen of Indiana won 389 to Tom King’s 194 with a smattering of votes for the rest of the candidates who did initially win a seat on the Board. Charlie was part of the NRA 2.0 Team and had many volunteers handing out his cards, buttons, and other campaign materials. Not only that but I rarely saw Charlie as he was out campaigning. King, as well, campaigned hard and had numerous members of the Old Guard helping him campaign.

The results are below. With Hiltunen’s election, NRA 2.0 or the reformers took 20 out of 30 available seats. We go into Monday’s Board meeting with a significant majority so long as those who have supported reform in the past don’t go wobbly.

The full results are as follows:

Charles Hiltunen … 389

Tom King … 194

Greer Johnson … 43

Kim Rhode … 29

Lucretia Hughes Klucken … 28

Frank Tait … 22

Isaac Demarest … 22

Charles Rowe … 16

Gene Roach … 12

Steven Dulan … 11

Jeffrey Fleetham … 10

Lane Ruhland … 10

Ronald Schmeits … 10

David Mitten … 9

Regis Synan … 8

Richard Todd Figard … 6

Mark Shuell … 5

TOTAL 824

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Notes On The 2025 Meeting Of Members

April 27, 2025 by 7 Comments

The 2025 NRA Meeting of Members lasted a full four hours. The meeting began with the usual reports, awards, and recognition of the oldest and youngest. It ended with four resolutions being considered of which one passed, one was referred, and two defeated.

The oldest member present was Norris Jernigan, a WWII veteran, who was 100 years. If I live to 100, I want to be as spry and clear-minded as Mr. Jernigan! In a departure from past Meeting of Members that I have attended, the youngest member present was 14 year old Mason Hague (sp?). Normally, it is a toddler or even younger.

The outstanding club was the Franklin Revolver and Rifle Association of Franklin, NJ. The youth club award went to Capital City Jr. Rifle Club of Belgrade, ME. Finally, the state association award went to the Iowa Firearms Coalition.

Following this was a video message from President Donald Trump. I’m not going to say the funeral for Pope Francis provided a good excuse for Trump’s absence but it did serve as one. I don’t know if it is available online but he did call Bob Barr a great guy and former President Biden was characterized as “grossly incompetent”.

Following this was the Elections Report from the Election Committee. I will have more on this in a future post. However, for the time being here are some quick numbers.

  • 2,506,951 ballots mailed
  • 74,203 ballots cast
  • 72,461 valid ballots received
  • 1,742 invalid ballots received
  • Winning totals for 3-year terms ranged from 44,546 (Mitzi McCorvey) to 34,167 (Scott Emslie).
  • Proposed amendment won with 52,608 voting for it.

CEO and EVP Doug Hamlin reported that new money and new hires were being dedicated to hunting, competition, and clubs and associations. These are the three areas that are being emphasized in the effort to rebuild membership.

Moving on to New Business, four resolutions were considered. I will do more in-depth reprting on these four resolutions in future posts.

Ron Andring, Sr. of San Antonio, TX and the Members Take Back the NRA Facebook page offered two resolutions. His first resolution offered a very strong conflict of interest bylaw amendment. As one might imagine, there was considerable debate on this. A motion was made by Director Joel Friedman to refer this to committee which engendered considerable debate itself. Eventually, over 100 voting members requested by a show of credentials that they wanted to vote using a paper ballot. This was done and the motion was referred to the Bylaws & Resolutions Committee for more work with the request that Mr. Andring be part of the committee working on it. I was told by a long time observer that this was the first time the paper ballot had been used in over 25 years.

Mr. Andring’s second resolution dealt with the interference in the voting process by Wayne LaPierre and demanded that future elections be free of collusion between any board members and the EVP. This was defeated.

I am happy to say that my own resolution on transparency which called for a members-only webpage that had the bylaws, tax filings, board minutes, and a list of committees with their members on it passed. The resolution also asked that the Board of Directors consider the feasibility of livestreaming board meetings. There were some objections raised to it saying it might be costly to set up a webpage. I consider this a spurious objection as the NRA already has multiple webpages and the items included already have to be created. It is not costly to upload documents in a PDF or to convert a MS Word document such as the minutes to HTML. I guess the third time is the charm as this was my third attempt to get a resolution passed.

The final resolution was a condemnation of former VP and head of the Audit Committee David Coy. While I don’t have a copy of that resolution, it did call for him to resign from the Board of Directors. It was defeated. I will say my only surprise is that President Bob Barr did not rule it out of order. I say that not because I thought it out of order but that seemed to be the way challenging resolutions such as this were dealt with in the past.

With that, the meeting was adjourned and all newly elected directors officially started their terms of service on the Board of Directors. We will be sworn in at the Board meeting on Monday.

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Weapons Of The Easter Rising

April 24, 2025 by 3 Comments

Today is the 109th anniversary of the Easter Rising which was an attempt at Irish independence. Begun on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, Irish patriots seized important buildings around the city of Dublin. It was organized by the Irish Republican Brotherhood and included other groups such as the Irish Volunteers, the Irish Citizens Army, and Cumann na mBan (Irishwomen’s Council). As you may guess, the British Army suppressed this armed attempt sooner than later. Most of the leaders of the revolt that survived were executed the next month.

A few years ago I found a small book by a retired US Army Lt. Col. which went into great detail on the firearms used by all sides in the event. Kieran McMullen was a Field Artillery officer and has a number of books out on firearms and other weapons used in the conflicts in Ireland during the first half of the 20th Century.

The weapons covered in this book range from Enfield and Mauser rifles to Vickers machine guns to pikes. It is very comprehensive in that it details which firearm or weapon was used by which group and in what part of the city of Dublin.

If you have an interest in weapons of this era or just want to know more about the Easter Rising, I can heartily recommend this book. Insofar as I know, you will need to email Col. McMullen at kilmainhamtales.us@gmail.com to order the book. If I remember correctly, the book cost about $15. I also purchased his Weapons of the Irish Civil War and Weapons of the Burning of the Customs House.

As an aside, with three grandparents born in Ireland it is fitting that my birthday and the date of Easter Rising coincide.

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Del-Ton Closing Its Doors

April 23, 2025 by 2 Comments

Long-time AR maker Del-Ton, Inc. is closing its doors. Founded in 1998 in Fayetteville, NC during the middle of the Clinton assault-weapons ban, Del-Ton was a stalwart of the entry-level of the AR market. They later moved to Elizabethton which is about half-way between Fayetteville and Wilmington in Bladen County.

They have posted this announcement on their website:

Thank You For Your Support – Del-Ton is Closing.

As Del-Ton prepares to close its doors, we want to take a moment to express our deepest gratitude to the incredible people who have been part of our journey.

To our loyal customers: Your trust in our products and support of our mission has been the cornerstone of our success. Every purchase, every kind word, and every moment spent using our products has meant the world to us.

To our vendors and partners: Your collaboration, innovation, and shared commitment have been invaluable in helping us deliver quality and reliability to our customers.

To our dedicated employees: You are the heart and soul of Del-Ton. Your hard work, passion, and unwavering commitment have shaped our legacy and built a company we can all be proud of.

Together, we’ve achieved so much, and though this chapter is ending, the memories, partnerships, and friendships will remain. Thank you for being part of the Del-Ton story.

With heartfelt appreciation,

The Del-Ton Team .

The entry-level or low-end of the AR market has gotten increasingly competitive with makers like Palmetto State Armory and Anderson going head-to-head with Del-Ton. According to the 2022 AFMER manufacturing report posted on the ATF website, Palmetto made four times as many finished rifles as Del-Ton. Similarly, Anderson dominated in the unfinished lower market with almost 150,000 unfinished AR lowers to Del-Ton’s zero. If you are having to compete on price and not quality, the bigger manufacturers with their economies of scale will dominate.

I don’t know if this is the beginning of a realignment in the firearms industry or just the “Trump Slump”. Nonetheless, it is sad to see any firearms company go out of business.

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The Shot Heard Round The World Plus 250

April 19, 2025 by 7 Comments

April 19th marks the 250th anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord. General Gage’s attempt to seize and destroy the weapons and munitions of the militias was the spark that that sent the 13 colonies on their way to becoming the original 13 states of the United States of America.

In the video below which was produced by the White House in collaboration with Hillsdale College as part of their The Story of America series examines the battles in detail. The video features Wilfred McClay who holds the Victor Davis Hanson Chair in Classical History and Western Civilization at Hillsdale.

Sadly, both the current government of Massachusetts and the judges of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals have failed to comprehend the lessons of Lexington and Concord. The 1st Circuit just upheld a challenge to the Massachusetts AWB finding that these weapons were “dangerous and unusual” and thus regulation comported with the Bruen decision. Frankly, it was a perversion of history but it fits their blindered narrative. That this egregious decision was released a mere two days before the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord cannot have been just an accident of timing.

An interesting side note is that the author of the decision, Judge Gary Katzmann, had served as a law clerk to Justice Stephen Breyer when Breyer was a judge on the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

The American Battlefield Trust has also produced a very good video on the battles that features reenactments of segments of the battles. It is worth a look as well.

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Movin’ On Up

April 18, 2025 by 5 Comments

Just over a year ago I reported on the promotion of Wayne and Susan LaPierre’s niece to the position of Director of Events for Advancement. That post prompted then-NRA spokesperson Billy McLaughlin to reach out and call that a false report. Then, as now, I stand by both the story and the sources. It is my understanding that Mrs. Sterner is no longer with the NRA nor is Tyler Schropp who promoted her.

However, that is not the point of this post. This morning a friend sent me a screenshot of McLaughlin’s LinkedIn page.

According to his LinkedIn page, McLaughlin left the NRA soon after he reached out to me to work for his own company and then to be the Chief Marketing Officer for Israel Campus Coalition. He is now the White House Director of Digital Content. That is quite a promotion!

I don’t know the circumstances of his leaving the NRA nor if he was pushed to respond to me by the Old Guard. I am glad to see he has landed on his feet. Hopefully, he puts in a good word now and then for the NRA. We will need it. As Stephen Gutowski points out, President Trump can be fickle and could come around to the NRA again.