by The 2021 NRA Annual Meeting scheduled for Labor Day Weekend in Houston has been canceled. The official reason given was due to COVID-19.
The email sent out to the Board of Directors from NRA President Carolyn Meadows included this announcement:
Due to concern over the safety of our NRA family and community, we regret to inform you that we have decided to cancel the 2021 Annual Meeting & Exhibits. This cancellation applies to all events and meetings that were scheduled in Houston. We will provide future notification regarding a rescheduled date for the annual Meeting of Members.
We make this difficult decision after analyzing relevant data regarding COVID-19 in Harris County, Texas. We also consulted with medical professionals, local officials, major sponsors & exhibitors, and many NRA members before arriving at this decision. The NRA Annual Meeting welcomes tens of thousands of people, and involves many events, meetings, and social gatherings. Among the highlights of our annual meeting are acres of exhibit space featuring the latest and greatest firearms, the display of countless accessories, and the offering of adventures and group gatherings that many travel hundreds, and some even thousands, of miles to experience. We realize that it would prove difficult, if not impossible, to offer the full guest experience that our NRA members deserve. The NRA’s top priority is ensuring the health and well-being of our members, staff, sponsors, and supporters. We are mindful that NRA Annual Meeting patrons will return home to family, friends and co-workers from all over the country, so any impacts from the virus could have broader implications. Those are among the reasons why we decided to cancel our 2021 event.
We would like to thank our members, attendees, exhibitors, and staff for their understanding and support. We are grateful for the many contributions of the George R. Brown Convention Center, state and local officials, community organizers, area hotels, and countless event venues across Houston. We receive enormous support from Houston and the State of Texas – and we hope to return to the Bayou City for a full annual meeting experience.
The NRA looks forward to a Celebration of Freedom in Louisville in May 2022. In the meantime, we will support many other NRA local events and smaller gatherings – in a manner that is protective of our members and celebrates our Second Amendment freedom.
We wish continued health and safety to our entire NRA family.
I hate to say it but I’m kind of relieved. I just wasn’t feeling the excitement about it that I normally do. I’ll miss seeing some friends but more were probably staying away.
Hopefully as the boomer fudds start to go extinct so will the NRA.
I walked by the NRA booth at the last show in VA without making eye contact and felt not even a slightly ashamed. I use Amazon smile for SAF and give them my money, along with some other local orgs like VCDL and MSI.
I agree that as the boomer fudds – and I’m a boomer but not a fudd – go extinct there will be changes. I think they are what is keeping Wayne in power because they vote.
The NRA does play an important role which they need to reemphasize in training. That is important. Moreover, no other organization lobbies nationally as well as the NRA. On the state level, it is an entirely different story. Here in NC, the NRA affiliate NCRPA is taking credit for getting the pistol purchase repeal bill. However, they never even showed up for the hearings. GRNC did – and they wrote the bill!
Training wont save the NRA in an era where people can Google 37 Youtube videos on fundamentals of marksmanship and get a dry fire trainer delivered Amazon prime the next day. NRA lobbying means nothing if they cannot reach 20 and 30 somethings and persuade them to be politically active. I used to think that the NRA could be saved, but the cancer and fecklessness run too deep. Its not just WLP. It’s all his enablers.
NRA brand is toxic during once of the greatest gun awakenings in decades. Millions of new shooters, many who I have helped, and the NRA buried itself in a lawsuit. Even my lovable liberal friends: concerned “Biden cant have my brace!”. Can the NRA be saved? idk, i used to think so, but the longer this bs goes on the money I think we are on death watch.
The thing that those who write the NRA off forget is, the NRA has at last report 5 million members, who you should be able to double, once WLP and his cronies are gone. I see so many people say that they won’t give a red cent to the NRA as long as Wayne is still there. So I am hoping that if somehow we are able to see the last of WLP and company, and a new and usable board of a much smaller size set in place, the donations and the recruitment will make the membership somewhere around 10 million members.
With a membership like that, the political power of the NRA should increase immensely, at a time when the Democrats are seeing their congressional control gone, due to the missteps that we are seeing now, in both the legislative branch and the executive branch.
Double? How many of the 123 million US households own guns? 40 million? 60 million? I’d bet a lot more. I don’t believe any of the social surveys because the first rule of gun club is you don’t talk about gun club. The NRA barely scratches the surface.
NRA had a lot of problems besides WLP. WLP merely let the problems metastasize. They don’t know how to reach people. They are stuck in the 80s, politically and culturally. Including gun culture. I am not saying that they didn’t try. NRAtv was a good idea, poorly executed. TFBtv is what NRAtv should have been.
The NRA squandered a lot of opportunities to reach people and expand. Bloomberg hired someone media and meme-savvy with a Twitter account… almost 8 years ago lmao. NRA has been trying to reinvent itself for the Facebook/YouTube age for over a decade, unsuccessfully (which is now the Instagram/TikTok age). They were poorly positioned for the vast interest in gun ownership over the last year, another opportunity squandered.
I think a lot of people are hoping, for sentimental reasons, that the NRA reinvents itself. Capitalism is cruel: adapt or die. At every opportunity, NRA seems to be choosing death. You can only tell someone stubborn 47 times that they need to change, then you need to move on.
I am an NRA recruiter. I used to have a segment in my classes where I promoted the NRA and tried to get new members onboard. I don’t even do that anymore. It is sad. I’ll be a member ’til the end, but they have embarrassed me enough to no longer actively recruit. At least for now.
Oh, and DWB, I do the exact same thing with Amazon Smile! Glad I’m not the only one.