resolutions

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Meeting Of Members – Resolution Four

May 2, 2025 by 1 Comment

The fourth and final resolution of the day at the Meeting of Members was offered by Dan Cline. This resolution called out David Coy for his work as Vice-Chair of the Audit Committee. It offered several examples of what the author termed as failures and ultimately called for Mr. Coy to resign from the Board of Directors as a result of a vote of no confidence.

This resolution was defeated. Like with Resolution Two, it condemned past behavior and in my opinion the members attending wanted to move forward. While Mr. Coy remains on the Board of Directors, he was removed from the Audit Committee. Moreover, the Final Judgment in the New York trial specifies that no director who served on the Audit committee during the years 2014 through 2022 shall be elected to the Audit Committee.

Below is the resolution offered by Dan Cline:

I appreciate Dan for sending me a copy of his resolution when I requested it.

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Meeting of Members – Resolution Three

May 2, 2025 by 3 Comments

The third resolution considered at the 2025 Meeting of Members was offered by yours truly. It was my resolution calling for transparency by posting our Form 990s, an up-to-date version of the Bylaws, minutes of the Board of Directors meetings, and a list of Board committees with a listing of members. It also called for a feasibility study by the Board on livestreaming our Board of Directors meetings. Upon the advice of Amanda Suffecool, I kept the wording of the resolution as bare bones as I could.

Here is the resolution as submitted:

WHEREAS, the National Rifle Association as an effective organization that exists for the benefit of its members must be transparent in its actions, finances, and organizational rules;  and

WHEREAS, an enhanced commitment to transparency enhances and extends the official NRA Compliance Commitments to Members; and

WHEREAS, transparency is a critical component in reinvigorating membership; therefore be it

RESOLVED, that, on this 26th day of April, 2025, the members of the National Rifle Association of America here gathered at the Annual Meeting of Members in Atlanta, Georgia do hereby request the NRA Board of Directors to create a NRA members-only webpage; and

RESOLVED, that we, the members here gathered, further request the NRA Board of Directors to include on this NRA members-only webpage an up-to-date edition of the bylaws, the past three years of the organization’s IRS Form 990 filings, the  minutes of all Board of Directors (meetings) for the past year as well as all future meetings, and a list of all the Board committees including their membership ; and

RESOLVED, that we, the members here gathered, further request the NRA Board of Directors to investigate the feasibility of live-streaming Board meetings with a report of their findings to be published in the Official Journal.

If you have read my report or that of Stephen Gutowski in The Reload, you know that this resolution passed overwhelmingly. Not only did it pass but it was sent directly to the Board of Directors without referral to any committee. According to Stephen, he counted about six No votes.

What seemed to be the primary objection to my resolution was about the costs of doing this. I’d like to address this. First, every filing or document that I requested to be put on a webpage that could accessed by members only would have already been created by NRA staff. The only cost might be the less than hour time of the webmaster to upload the documents. Next, a members only portal does not need to be created as one already exists!

If you go to www.nra.org, you will see a link that leads to a Member Services page. See where I have circled in red.

Member services allows one to access their membership information and requires a log-on. You can set up your own User ID and Password as a first time user. I had forgotten my password so had to have it reset and it just took a call to toll-free number to do it. As you can see in the picture below where I have circled, the NRA’s Annual Compliance Report to Members is already there. Adding additional documents is no big deal.

What has been lost by the NRA in the last few years is trust. Transparency builds trust. Trust gets old members to return and encourages new people to join. Posting these documents is an easy and cost-effective first step in our efforts to rebuild trust in the organization.

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Meeting Of Members – Resolution Two

May 2, 2025 by

The second resolution offered at the 2025 NRA Meeting of Members was also by Ronald Andring, Sr. This resolution condemned the past collusion of the Executive VP of the NRA in manipulating the nomination and election process. As was revealed in both the New York AG’s trial and by the podcast Gangster Capitalism, Wayne LaPierre had sought to have a “friendly” Board of Directors elected. He did this by using monies from his budget to campaign for the 76th Director and by using his gatekeeper Millie Hallow as an intermediary between himself and the Nominating Committee.

This resolution, unlike Ron’s earlier resolution, was defeated. I spoke with Ron after the Meeting of Members and he was still satisfied despite not having both of his resolutions adopted. He was able to be heard and to get his information out into the public arena.

Andring Resolution No. 2 – 2025 Meeting of MembersDownload
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Meeting Of Members – Resolution One

May 2, 2025 by 4 Comments

Ronald Andring, Sr. offered the first resolution to be discussed at the 2025 NRA Meeting of Members. The resolution dealt with conflicts of interest and offered an amendment to the NRA Bylaws. Accompanying his resolution was a compilation of insider payments. I have embedded both of these below.

There was considerable discussion of Ron’s resolution. As discussed in my post on the Meeting of Members, the resolution was eventually forwarded to the Bylaws & Resolutions Committee for consideration and further refinement. While many resolutions in the past have been forwarded to that committee to die a quiet death, I do not think that will be the case here. Part of the reason is that the referral was done by a paper ballot vote by the members assembled. A long time observer noted this was the first time she has seen this happening in over 25 years of attending these meetings. The second part of the reason is that it was requested that Ron be appointed to the Bylaws & Resolutions Committee to work specifically on this bylaw amendment.

Andring – Resolution No. 1 – 2025 Meeting of MembersDownload
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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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January NRA Board Meeting: Resolutions And Bylaw Amendments

January 6, 2025 by 1 Comment

The NRA Board of Directors will hold their winter meeting on Saturday, January 12th, in Dallas, Texas. Thanks to a nameless director who actually believes in transparency I have a list of the resolutions and bylaw amendments that will be presented at the meeting. Some of these will be for discussion only and some will be for voting.

Resolutions

  • Special Litigation Committee Dissolution (Amanda Suffecool) – review of resolution presented in September
  • Special Litigation Committee Dissolution v. 1 (Amanda Suffecool & Rocky Marshall)
  • Special Litigation Committee Dissolution v. 2 (Buz Mills & Rocky Marshall)
  • Nomination of Charles Brown for Board of Directors ballot (Buz Mills & Rocky Marshall)
  • Nomination of Paul Babaz for Board of Directors ballot (Buz Mills & Rocky Marshall)
  • Creation of a Committee of Reorganization (Buz Mills & Rocky Marshall)
  • Relocation Committee Dissolution (Buz Mills & Rocky Marshall)
  • Executive VP Search Committee Dissolution (Buz Mills & Rocky Marshall)
  • Criminal Background Check of Directors and Officers (Charlie Beers)
  • Resolution regarding Reclamation of Expenses relating to NYAG v NRA (Dennis Fusaro, Jeff Knox, Phil Journey, & Rocky Marshall)

Bylaw Amendments – Q&A Only

  • Committee Assignment Procedures v. 1 (Al Hammond, Amanda Suffecool, & Rick Ector)
  • EVP Advise and Consent by BOD (John Sigler)
  • President BOD Limitations (Jay Printz, Kayne Robinson, David Keene, and Ronnie Barrett)
  • Conflict of Interest (Dennis Fusaro & Jeff Knox)
  • Article VII Dissolution (Buz Mills & Rocky Marshall)
  • Committee Assignment Procedures v. 2 (Al Hammond, Amanda Suffecool, & Rick Ector)

Other than the resolution regarding the reclamation of expenses relating to monies paid out on behalf of Wayne LaPierre, I have not seen nor have been provided with the text of any of the resolutions or bylaw amendments.

And speaking of transparency, I look at the small towns near me such as Waynesville and Fletcher. They have populations of 10,667 and 8,158 respectively. Despite their small size, their governing boards publish their meeting agendas and minutes online. The Town of Waynesville goes a step further and livestreams their Town Council meetings on YouTube. The town’s Board of Adjustment on which I served for 19 years even has their minutes going back to 2005 online.

If small towns – and larger cities – all around the United States can be this transparent and make their agenda and minutes so readily available, why cannot the NRA Board of Directors? I was disappointed that Judge Cohen in his Final Order did not address this. However, it should not take an order from a judge to make the necessary changes needed for transparency. It should be remembered that the Board of Directors serve and represent the members and not the other way around.

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2023 NRA Meeting Of Members – Resolutions 1 and 2

April 19, 2023 by 2 Comments

The first resolution offered at the 2023 Meeting of Members came from John Carr, a Patron Life Member from St. Louis, MO. As he handwrote the resolutions, I don’t have a copy. In his resolution, Mr. Carr asked for two things. First, that we be given three options for voting for Board candidates. These would be For, Against, and Abstain. This mimics how public corporations do it in their annual proxy votes. Second, it called for a vote of confidence in Wayne LaPierre.

Before Mr. Carr’s resolution could be read, NRA President Charles Cotton ruled it out of order as it wasn’t in the form of a resolution. Mr. Cotton could have given Carr the opportunity to amend his resolution to meet the proper format required but didn’t.

The second resolution was from Jeff Knox. It called for a vote of no confidence in the officers of the NRA and specifically asked that that Charles Cotton and David Coy resign. After virtually no discussion other than an explanation from Jeff, the vote was called. By my estimate of the show of hands, it failed in a 1/3 aye, 2/3 nay vote. An estimate of the number of attendees was put at about 600 voting members.

The resolution of no confidence in the officers is below.

Resolution of No Confidence in the Officers

Proposed by Jeff Knox, Endowment Life Member, Arizona.

Whereas it is the sworn duty of all members of the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association, and particularly the officers of the Board, to put the needs and interests of the Association above any personal considerations or other loyalties, and

Whereas Directors and officers of the NRA have a legal, ethical, and moral responsibility to be honest and above-board in their dealings with fellow Directors, staff, and the members of the Association, and

Whereas it is the duty of the members of the Audit Committee, as explained in the Committee’s Mission Statement; “to assist the Board of Directors in its oversight of the integrity of financial information, its review of the adequacy of the system of internal controls established by the Association, and its monitoring of the audit process,” as well as to specifically; “review the Association’s financial reporting process and internal controls, review and appraise the audit efforts of the Association’s independent auditors, and provide open means of communication between the Directors, the independent auditors, and the financial and senior management of the Association,” and to; “provide oversight of regulatory compliance and business ethics compliance,” and

Whereas it is also the duty of members of the Audit Committee to oversee and deal with questions of conflict of interest, related party transactions, and the oversight and management of the Association’s “whistleblower” policies, and

Whereas all of the above-mentioned duties and responsibilities are particularly incumbent upon the Chair and Vice Chair of the Audit Committee, as they are responsible for leading, and ensuring that the other members of the Committee are informed of, and in compliance with, these requirements and duties, and

Whereas Mr. Charles Cotton and Mr. David Coy, who currently serve, respectively, as President and Second Vice President of the NRA Board of Directors, and have alternately served as Chair and Vice Chair of the Audit Committee for many years, have both failed in their fiduciary duties and obligations to the members of the NRA by placing personal relationships, and loyalty to Wayne LaPierre above the requirements of their respective offices, failing to properly oversee outside auditors, failing to engage in any sort of thorough, internal audits, failing to thoroughly evaluate internal systems, policies, and protocols to ensure the security of the system from abuse, failing to fully inform the Board of Directors of critical information, failing to enforce conflict of interest and related party transaction policies, and approving such conflicts of interest and related party transactions, with little scrutiny, and no penalty for tardy or incomplete reporting, and failing to give proper consideration to whistleblowers alarms, failing to adequately protect whistleblowers, and failing to report critical whistleblower concerns to the full Board, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the members here gathered at the NRA Annual Meeting of Members, on this 15th day of April, 2023, do hereby express our extreme frustration with these officers, and declare that we have No Confidence in their ability to effectively serve this Association in any of their current positions as officers and members of finance-related, governance-related, and litigation-related committees, and we call upon the Board of Directors to select others from among their members, who have not been involved in the serious failings of the Audit Committee over the past 20+ years, to fill these positions.

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Meeting Of Members – Resolutions, Part III

June 6, 2022 by 1 Comment

The next two resolutions to be considered included one that I authored on the condition of the NRA Headquarters Building and another that called for email notification of members when a meeting was canceled.

I had conversations with numerous people who told me about the poor condition of the NRA Headquarters Building. Doug Wicklund, former senior curator of the NRA Firearms Museum, sent me the picture below.

Courtesy of Doug Wicklund

He noted that there were numerous patches for water damage in the driveway overhang as well as staining from rust on the window frames of the building. Another person who had been on the 6th Floor said there was lots of water damage from the leaking roof. In era in which real estate tax valuations rarely go down, Fairfax County lowered the tax valuation of the building by over $1 million from 2020 to 2021.

It is an embarrassment that the public face of the NRA is in such poor condition. After my resolution was introduced, I spoke in favor of it as did a gentleman from southwest Louisiana who said you don’t play around with leaking roofs. Speaking against my resolution was NRA Board Member Ron Schmeits of Raton, NM. He said the board was working on it, that there was no need to “waste money” on an independent inspection, and well, you know getting parts these days is hard. Frankly, I put in the part about an independent, third party inspection because I don’t trust the board to do more than pay lip service.

Of the few people remaining at the meeting, the majority agreed with Schmeits and voted it down.

I unfortunately do not have a copy of the next resolution nor the name of the person who introduced it. Basically, it noted that the last minute cancelation of the 2021 NRA Annual Meeting in Houston caused members to lose money on reservations and airfare. The resolution called a better notification of members when a meeting was going to be canceled. It asked that all members be notified by email in case of a cancelation and not just by a note on the webpage. After minimal discussion, it was voted down.