Tom King

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A Shot Across The NRA’s Bow

November 5, 2025 by 7 Comments

The NRA Foundation has decided they needed to weigh in on the NRA’s reorganization. According to a news release posted Tuesday in The Tactical Wire, they said they wanted to clarify their “independence” from the NRA.

From the release:

Amid recent news about the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) restructuring announcement, the NRA Foundation today reaffirmed its independence, stability, and continued focus on its charitable mission.

“The NRA Foundation is an independent, nonprofit public charity with its own staff leadership, legal structure, board of trustees, and mission,” said Tom King, President of the NRA Foundation. “While the NRA undergoes its internal restructuring, the Foundation’s work continues uninterrupted. We remain focused on preserving America’s shooting and hunting traditions for future generations.”

The NRA Foundation is not part of the NRA’s organizational or financial structure. Its role is educational, charitable, and safety-focused – not political or advocacy-driven.

When the NRA Foundation revised their bylaws after their consent decree with the DC Attorney General the way that Foundation trustees were elected was changed in August 2024. It should be noted that the consent decree did not mandate a change in the method of election of trustees. Previously, the trustees of the NRA Foundation were elected by the NRA Board of Directors. They are now elected by the trustees themselves. If this sounds a little self-selecting and incestuous that is because it is.

More troubling is that the overwhelming majority of the trustees are from what I term the Old Guard. You have your Cottons, your Kings, your Coys, and many others from their camp on the Board. It’s as if a conscious decision was made, somewhere, sometime, by the Old Guard that if they could not remain in power at the NRA then the Foundation would become their new locus of power. I and others find this disturbing.

The Articles of Incorporation of the NRA Foundation, as amended, state that among other things they are to support the 501(c)(3) activities of the National Rifle Association. Neither the 2024 amendment to the Articles of Incorporation nor the bylaws adopted in July 2025 changed that.

I really question the need for the NRA Foundation to release any statement regarding the reorganization going on at the NRA. First, it does not impact them in any way. Second, it only serves to muddy the issues. Third, it seems a conscious effort to denigrate the leadership and management of the NRA at a time when they are cleaning up the mess left behind by the self-same Old Guard. It is as if the powers that be at the Foundation are just hoping for failure which I find utterly disgusting.

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Ollie North To Sue NRA For Malicious Prosecution

April 4, 2025 by 6 Comments

An email went out yesterday from the NRA’s Office of General Counsel to staff and directors telling them to preserve documents. This was because former NRA President Lt. Col. Oliver North would be filing suit against the NRA for “malicious prosecution” tomorrow. While I have seen the email on document preservation, I have not seen the complaint from North’s intended lawsuit nor do I know in which court the case will be tried.

This motivated me to go back and read through the documents in the case the NRA filed against Oliver North in 2020 in Albany, New York. The NRA sought a declaratory judgment from the court that New York Non-Profit Corporation Law did not prevent the NRA from following its bylaw process for expelling Col. North if found guilty of an ethics complaint filed by Director Tom King. This case was dismissed on March 7, 2025 by mutual agreement of the NRA and Col. North.

Prior to the case being dismissed, Col. North had moved for summary judgment in his favor given the outcome of the New York Attorney General’s case against the NRA. In response, the NRA’s new lawyers from Baker & Hostetler LLP requested a pre-motion conference and permission of the court to voluntarily dismiss the case with prejudice.

The response from Col. North opposing the voluntary dismissal may give some indication as to what will come up in his new lawsuit.

The NRA intends to dismiss their case after the damage has been done to Col. North (and the NRA), and retreat as quietly as possible, whereas Col. North asks, in fairness, for a proper judgment so that a stake is placed into the heart of this protracted campaign by the NRA to use its power and its members’ funds to retaliate against its former President for doing the right thing by reporting misconduct and seeking a proper course correction.

Col. North was seeking a judgment on the merits showing that he was a whistleblower who suffered retaliation from the NRA.

The NRA used an ethics complaint filed by Tom King against Col. North as the basis of its lawsuit. The complaint accused Col. North of a number of ethical and fiduciary breeches that came to a head at the 2019 NRA Annual Meeting when King accuses North of trying to “extort” Wayne LaPierre in order to keep his position as President of the NRA. He contends that North’s desire to investigate the billings of the Brewer law firm were motivated by greed and to keep his multi-million dollar contract with Ackerman-McQueen. Bear in mind that it did come out later that not only was the NRA aware of the contract, the Audit Committee approved it and Wayne himself help negotiate it on North’s behalf. King called the request to examine Brewer’s billings “not only unwarranted but unprecedented.”

I could go on but you can read it for yourself below. If anyone should be the target of an ethics complaint it should be the author of this complaint for its baseless allegations of “extortion”, “greed”, and “blackmail.” One can only hope the voting members of the NRA see through King and do not return him to the Board of Directors. We will find that out next week when the 2025 Board of Directors’ election results are released. The sad reality is that it will be left to the reformers to clean up the mess left by the departed parties including Wayne, Brewer, and the rest.

King ethics complaintDownload

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An Interesting Day In Dallas

May 21, 2024 by 1 Comment

This is going to be short post because I’m tired. I have been watching and corresponding about the events surrounding the Board of Directors meeting all day.

First, just the bare facts. Bob Barr representing the Old Guard did win the Presidency. The vote was 37-30. Then the surprises began. Bill Bachenberg from the reform slate went head to head with Blaine Wade for 1st VP and won 36-31. Following that, reformer Mark Vaughan, president of the Oklahoma Rifle Association, beat Tom King 35-31. King really represented the Old Guard and his defeat was a sea change in attitude on the Board.

Second, and what I consider the biggest surprise, Doug Hamlin, Executive Director of Publications and the reformer’s choice for EVP, beat Ronnie Barrett for EVP/CEO. There is some talk that Hamlin is intended as an interim choice while a nationwide search is conducted.

For a bare bones, just the facts ma’am report on what has happened so far, the NRA-ILA did a decent job. Here is a link to it.

A more in-depth report is from Stephen Gutowski of The Reload which has some comments from Jeff Knox.

The last I knew was that the meeting was still continuing after coming back from a dinner break. The keys going forward will be membership on the Nominating and Executive Committee. As I noted this morning, there were no reformers nominated for the Executive Committee. That must change.

I hope to have more tomorrow.

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Ronnie Barrett For EVP?

May 20, 2024 by 3 Comments

I just got a copy of the Nominating Committee report. In addition to Bob Barr for President, Tom King and Blaine Wade are nominated as 1st and 2nd VP respectively. As rumored, David Coy was sacrificed.

The big surprise is Ronnie Barrett for EVP. I am sure the argument will be that he has the requisite business experience to run a large organization such as the NRA thanks to his history as CEO of Barrett Firearms Manufacturing. Now that he has sold that company to the Australians, he is free to take on other challenges. Not being in the room, we don’t know if he is being pitched as a temporary fix for the next couple of years or not. He is 70 years old so that might be the case. My objection to Barrett would revolve around him being a “Friend of Wayne” and it gives the anti’s more ammunition to accuse the NRA of just being a tool of the firearms industry. If the NRA was going to take a former CEO of a firearms company as the EVP, I think Mike Fifer of Ruger would have been a better choice.

I would also note that not one single reformer is nominated for the Executive Committee. It the Old Guard or the Cabal in its composition. I am a bit surprised that Marion Hammer was nominated for it as she had broken with the Cabal. Also, I see Joel Friedman who couldn’t even win the 76th Director position but only made it back to the Board by the resignation of Carl Rowan, Jr. is given a seat on it.

In other nominations, both John Frazer and Sonya Rowling keep their jobs with Bill Brewer’s guy Robert Mensinger joining as the Chief Compliance Officer. Seems like a good enough pick but he is tainted by association with Bill Brewer. As to Frazer, I perceive him as a nice – but weak – guy who is in over his head. In no other non-profit or corporation would the General Counsel still have the job after a jury found him guilty of violating his fiduciary duties and submitting false filings to a governmental agency. Rowling is, like Frazer, someone who in the end who will do what they are told. Witness the cutting of a check to Brewer’s law firm this weekend even though it devastates the NRA’s finances.

Here is the full report. Make your own decisions about it. In my opinion, it is a big FU to those who want change, those who want transparency, and those who think the members actually count.

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Dan Boren Makes Eight

November 2, 2019 by 2 Comments

There are times in life when you say, “I’m tired of taking this shit.” Dan Boren had to be there when he resigned from the NRA and NRA Board of Directors yesterday.

Leadership portrait of Dan Boren Date taken: August 8, 2013 Photographer: Marcy Gray

Boren’s resignation makes the eighth director to resign from the NRA Board of Directors since the beginning of the year.

Tom King, president of the NY State Rifle and Pistol Association and a NRA Board member, reportedly had filed an ethics complaint against Boren. Taken with a grain of salt given he is a LaPierre loyalist, he told Newsweek:

“Mr. Boren resigned in the face of an ethics complaint, which I filed, that cites troubling communications and serious allegations linking him to suspected extortion against the NRA and billing fraud by the NRA’s former vendor, Ackerman McQueen,” NRA board member Tom King told Newsweek in a written statement. “Under these circumstances, this news is not surprising.”

That was just the latest in actions aimed at Boren. In the case aimed at avoiding paying Oliver North’s legal bills, the NRA contended that Boren had somehow conspired with Col. North in the supposed “coup attempt”.

Then, in the NRA’s Federal case against Ackerman McQueen, they named him a “non-party co-conspirator” along with Col. North.

Mr. Boren entered into an agreement, combination, and/or conspiracy with the Defendants for the purpose of carrying out the fraudulent behavior, the attempt to de-railing the resulting NRA investigation, and the attempt to extort Mr. LaPierre and the NRA alleged herein. In addition, there exists a small group comprising former vendors, professionals, and consultants of the NRA whose economic incentives, like AMc’s, were challenged by the NRA investigation and, like Mr. Boren, joined the agreement, combination, and/or conspiracy.

My sources told me after the NRA Annual Meeting, that in their opinion, Boren had hoped to act as an intermediary to try and salvage the multi-decades relationship between the NRA and AckMac. There was nothing unsavory about his actions.

Boren was named Oklahoma president and Chief Banking Officer of First United Bank on October 10th. From The Oklahoman:

Boren, 46, who has spent nearly seven years as president of corporate development for the Chickasaw Nation, will begin work in early January at First United. The bank is based in Durant and has locations in Oklahoma and Texas.


First United CEO Greg Massey said, “I am excited to have Dan join our team. His passion for serving Oklahoma aligns perfectly with our purpose at First United.”

Boren, a Blue Dog Democrat, served four terms in Congress representing a district in eastern Oklahoma from 2005 until 2013. According to The Oklahoman, he had been considering a run for governor of Oklahoma last year. They note he hasn’t ruled out running for office in the future.

Taken on the whole, I’d say the NRA really needed a man like Boren more than he needed them. As a Democrat, he gave them at least some semblance of being bi-partisan. As a Congressman, even though it is now former Congressman, he gave them a strong influence on Capitol Hill. When you add that to his role with a large Indian tribe and his new job in banking, he brought a lot to the table.

What did he get in return for what he gave the NRA? A pile of paranoid crap. I’m surprised he didn’t resign earlier. I sure as hell would have and done so with a clear conscience.