The NRA Meeting of Members was one for the history books. For the first time in recent memory, you had sitting Directors speaking out in opposition to the leadership. Though President Charles Cotton tried to control the meeting including putting a hard stop time limit on it in an effort to limit debate, it was evident by the end that control had passed to the members.
I regret somewhat that I could not be there in person to witness it. However, there have been some great reports on it from Twitter as well as a couple of videos that have since been posted.
Stephen Gutowski of The Reload did a great job tweeting from the meeting. Here are some of his reports from X or Twitter.
It was the resolution phase of the meeting where things started to go awry for the Cabal. Bearing in mind there was a hard stop to the meeting, they started with a resolution praising President Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX). While nice, it was an effort to run the clock out and not let any of the resolutions that were critical of the NRA or its leadership to be heard. (I have seen multiple resolutions that were intended to introduced that condemned Charles Cotton and his leadership.) They then moved on to what they assumed was going to be a resolution that in Texas would just sail through. The Cabal asked the members to approve a resolution approving moving NRA Headquarters to Texas.
Here is a blow by blow when Stephen’s tweet are rolled together.
There’s now a resolution to move the NRA’s headquarters to Texas. Leadership really wants to do this even though it would have no impact on the New York case. I honestly don’t know what significant benefit this would have for the NRA.
A member asks what kind of fiscal impact a move from Virginia to Texas given the severe drop in revenue the NRA has experienced recently. NRA president Cotton claims it would be less expensive to operate in Texas. He says Texas has a lot of big companies, too.
The member wants more specific details on the actual cost of the move. Cotton refers to Arulanandam for that. Arulanandam says the NRA’s current headquarters is too big for the 60 or so staff that actually go in on a regular basis.
Arulanandam claims the current NRA building is also expensive to maintain. He also says people in Virginia don’t want to work for the NRA. So, he thinks Texas will be a better job pool. Cotton calls Virginia “DC south.” Sounds like an outright retreat from Virginia. Remarkable.
Arulanandam claims selling naming rights for the new Texas buildings will cover the costs of moving. However, he’s not giving any concrete numbers. The member who asked about it isn’t satisfied with the responses. He wants hard numbers.
NRA board member William Bachenberg gets up and claims the board hasn’t been given hard numbers on the cost of the mov either. He claims one estimate is $80 million. He also says they can’t sell naming rights for museum exhibits because they were previously sold.
Cotton is now attacking Bachenberg directly. He says he is wrong and hasn’t been active on the board for years.
NRA board member Jay Printz gets up and attacks Bachenberg, too. He has been an attack dog for leadership since the corruption scandal first erupted at the 2019 meeting. He jokes that he’s well known for cursing out the opposition.
Rob Pincus, who was one of those opposition members back in 2019, gets up to speak against the Texas move. Or, at least, moving right now.
I’m definitely getting some deja vu from the 2019 NRA members meeting. It’s not as roudy, but it’s very similar.
NRA board member Maria Heil is now speaking in opposition to th Texas move as well. You’re seeing a lot more board members speak out against what leadership wants that usual. That’s very interesting.
NRA board member Amanda Suffecool is now also speaking against the Texas move resolution.
Cotton gets loud boos when he insinuates that Suffecool isn’t in a position to understand what’s going on with the move because she’s only been on the board for a year. The biggest reaction so far.
The resolution to move to Texas is put to a vote. It fails. There was a big laugh when Cotton initially said who couldn’t tell which side won because it was pretty clear.
And that is where the meeting essentially ended thanks to the Cotton-imposed hard stop.
Just a few comments with my impressions on the meeting. First, attacking gun blogs is ridiculous. I don’t know any gun blogger who doesn’t want the NRA to be more than it has been in the fight for 2A rights. If we have been critical of the NRA, it is because the corruption has impaired the never-ending fight with the gun prohibitionists. Second, Andrew Arulanadam suggesting “naming rights” for a NRA building in Texas would pay for the move is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. To even suggest it is to insult our intelligence. Third, seeing Directors standing up to the Cabal was wonderful. Finally, Cotton attacking Amanda Suffecool was a big mistake and the members present let him know it with their boos.
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