2025 NRA Board Elections

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NRA Petition Candidate – Theresa Inacker

September 14, 2024 by 0 Comments

Theresa Inacker brings everything to the table. She is an attorney, a writer, a 2A activist, a competitor, a hunter, a Girl Scout leader, and a mom. I met Theresa through what was then called the DC Project. It is now called Women for Gun Rights and she serves as the New Jersey Director for the organization. She also serves on the Executive Board for the Coalition of New Jersey Firearms Owners. As a Second Amendment activist, she knows what the fight is like in the belly of the beast as she lives in one of the most unfree states in the nation – New Jersey.

You can read more about her in her bio below:

Theresa Inacker BIODownload

You can return Theresa’s petition either to her directly at 18 Lake Road, Tabernacle, NJ 08088. Alternatively, you can return it along with other petitions to Rocky Marshall. That address is Frontier Truck Gear, Attn Rocky Marshall, PO Box 277, Center Point, TX 78010. Regardless of which address you send it, the petition should be sent so that it arrives by September 30th. Both the Complementary Spouse and I have proudly signed her petition.

As with all of these petition candidates, if you can get more voting members to sign it, so much the better. A voting member is a) a Life Member of whatever level or b) an Annual Member with five years of continuous membership without a break.

Theresa Inacker PetitionDownload
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NRA Petition Candidate – Frank Tait

September 13, 2024 by 2 Comments

Frank Tait ran as a reformer before being for reform was cool. It was Frank Tait who authored the controversial resolution expressing no confidence in Wayne LaPierre in 2019. He was right but the cabal fought it off. It was Frank Tait who unsuccessfuly sought to intervene in the New York case on behalf of the members as it seemed no one was actually representing the members. Frank did make it on the Board for a short period in late 2022 and early 2023. He tried to open some eyes and maybe he did.

I have supported Frank each and every time he has run by petition and I proudly support him again. The Complementary Spouse and I cheerfully signed and returned his petition.

Frank Tait PetitionDownload

You can return Frank’s petition either to him directly at 424 W. Wayne Ave, Wayne, PA 19087. Alternatively, you can return it along with other petitions to Rocky Marshall. That address is Frontier Truck Gear, Attn Rocky Marshall, PO Box 277, Center Point, TX 78010. Regardless of which address you send it, the petition should be sent so that it arrives by September 30th. Both the Complementary Spouse and I have signed his petition.

As with all of these petition candidates, if you can get more voting members to sign it, so much the better. A voting member is a) a Life Member of whatever level or b) an Annual Member with five years of continuous membership without a break.

If you want to know a bit more about Frank’s qualifications, here is his bio:

Frank C Tait BIODownload
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NRA Petition Candidate – Charles Brown

September 13, 2024 by 0 Comments

Charles “Charlie” Brown is the President and owner of MKS Supply out of Dayton, Ohio. You may not recognize MKS Supply but you certainly will recognize some of their brands including Inland Manufacturing and Hi-Point. Originally hired as a sales representative with the predecessor company when he graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a business degree, he worked his way up and purchased the company in 1994. He would bring a level of business and management experience to the Board of Directors that is sorely lacking. His “official bio” is below:

Charles Brown BIODownload

You can return Charlie’s petition either to him directly at 2446 Glen Arbor Ct, Dayton, OH 45414. Alternatively, you can return it along with other petitions to Rocky Marshall. That address is Frontier Truck Gear, Attn Rocky Marshall, PO Box 277, Center Point, TX 78010. Regardless of which address you send it, the petition should be sent so that it arrives by September 30th. Both the Complementary Spouse and I have signed his petition.

Charles Brown PetitionDownload

I understand that Charlie has promised a Yeet Cannon 9 to everyone who signs his petition. Sorry – just kidding!

As with all of these petition candidates, if you can get more voting members to sign it, so much the better. A voting member is a) a Life Member of whatever level or b) an Annual Member with five years of continuous membership without a break.

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NRA Petition Candidate – Paul Babaz

September 13, 2024 by 0 Comments

Paul Babaz was another sitting director who was not re-nominated by the Nominating Committee. As he noted to me in an email, he didn’t get re-nominated “as I haven’t been falling in line with the cabal.” As NRA In Danger opined, he was purged.

Prior to serving on the NRA Board of Directors, Paul was president of Safari Club International. While a much smaller organization, it, too, has a large board of directors but they seem to be more frugal with their members’ dues. For example, last year they instituted a policy change whereby if you were coming to a committee meeting at the same time as the annual convention you paid your own expenses. Would that the NRA was that frugal with members’ dues.

Paul is currently a Managing Director-Investments and a Financial Advisor with Oppenheimer & Co. in Atlanta. His NRA biography is below:

Paul Babaz BIODownload

You can return Paul’s petition either to him directly at PO Box 81795, Atlanta, GA 30341. Alternatively, you can return it along with other petitions to Rocky Marshall. That address is Frontier Truck Gear, Attn Rocky Marshall, PO Box 277, Center Point, TX 78010. Regardless of which address you send it, the petition should be sent so that it arrives by September 30th. Both the Complementary Spouse and I have signed his petition.

Paul Babaz PetitionDownload

As with all of these petition candidates, if you can get more voting members to sign it, so much the better. A voting member is a) a Life Member of whatever level or b) an Annual Member with five years of continuous membership without a break.

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NRA Petition Candidate – Jim Porter

September 13, 2024 by 0 Comments

Former NRA President Jim Porter has been a thorn in the side of Bill Brewer. From what I understand, he has challenged both his competence and his billings.

It was Mr. Porter who moved that the May 2024 board meeting remain open and not in Executive Session. This was the meeting that saw three of the four reform candidates win officer or executive positions.

While not privy to the discussions within the Nominating Committee, I have to assume opposition from the cabal was one of the reasons he was not re-nominated for the 2025 ballot. It is virtually unheard of that a former NRA president is not nominated for re-election. Yet both he and Marion Hammer were not nominated for re-election. NRA In Danger has referred to this as the second director’s purge.

Since the Nominating Committee didn’t put Mr. Porter on the ballot, it falls to you and me to do it by petition.

James W. Porter IIDownload

You can return Mr. Porter’s petition either to him directly at 880 Montclair Rd, Suite 175, Birmingham, AL 35213. Alternatively, you can return it along with other petitions to Rocky Marshall. That address is Frontier Truck Gear, Attn Rocky Marshall, PO Box 277, Center Point, TX 78010. Regardless of which address you send it, the petition should be sent so that it arrives by September 30th.

According to his firm biography, Mr. Porter, an attorney, concentrates on defense work for public utilities and product liability claims for the firearms industry. His biography related to his work with the NRA is below.

Jim Porter BIODownload

Both the Complementary Spouse and I have signed Mr. Porter’s petition and returned it. I would urge you to do so as well. His experience is necessary if the reform of the NRA is to be successful.

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While I Was Gone…

September 5, 2024 by 2 Comments

I left for South Africa on the afternoon of Friday, August 23rd and only got back home to North Carolina around noon yesterday. As the Complementary Spouse was home alone (though well armed), I was reluctant to go public that I was out of the country. I had won an auction at the SCI Convention in February for a 7-day hunt at a ridiculously low price to go with a Delta “buddy pass” which had to be used by early September. Thus, my brother-in-law Larry and his son Alex joined me for a trip to Thabazimbi in Limpopo Province. I will have more on that trip in subsequent post but suffice to say it was pretty successful.

However, while I was gone, a lot of stuff happened and it is hard to blog about things when using just an iPad. Lets go over some of the things that have happened while I was gone.

Number 1: I was put on the ballot for the 2025 NRA Board of Directors election by the Nominating Committee. I did quickly post about this on August 28th. As I have said, this was not expected. Some have suggested with some justification that this may have been an attempt to shut down my news and criticism of the cabal and the NRA. I promise that if elected I will not stop exposing issues within the NRA while still being observant of my fiduciary duties. I should also note that I am NOT stopping my campaign to be on the ballot by petition. While it may seem redundant now that I am officially on the ballot, being placed on the ballot by petition to me is the Holy Grail as it comes from the members and not the insiders. My goal in running for the Board is to serve the members, the grass roots, and the cause of advancing our Second Amendment rights.

Number 2: NRA In Danger blog was taken down temporarily. I literally had 3-4 emails within an hour of it going down telling me about it. I had multiple back and forth emails with “NRALifer” over the issue after I was alerted to it. While the conspiracy theorist in me and many others pointed towards that lawyer we all love to hate, in the end it was some WordPress.com anti-spam algorithm that targeted the blog for supposed spamming. I hate to say it but in the old days of bulletin boards, listservs, and Usenet groups it was harder to suppress news and opinion. As social media has grown up, censorship has grown with it. I am an advocate for having and using private hosting services that are less likely to be censored than the corporate ones. For the record, I do not know who runs and writes the NRA In Danger blog.

Number 3: A blistering 8-page “Dear Board Member” letter went out on August 30th from NRA VPs Bill Bachenberg and Mark Vaughan. It took aim at the Special Litigation Committee, the original committee assignments, Brewer, and the cabal. More on this letter in another post.

Number 4: The cabal waited a few days and then issued their response officially (supposedly?) written by cabal member Don Saba. It accused Bachenberg and Vaughan of being “divisive” and “harmful” to the NRA as well as trying to coerce and browbeat the cabal. . The letter was full of innuendo about the reform elements cooperating with the NYAG’s office and how they had help from a “competing second amendment organization” to promote “discord, distrust, and confusion” on the Board and with gunowners. Of course, it is nonsense. I do remember well that Dr. Saba was one of the Directors who vehemently disagreed with my 2020 resolution on succession planning at the Annual Meeting in Tucson.

Number 5: I met and became friends with a member of the 2016 South African Olympic Team. Lindsay Hanekom is a field and track athlete who runs the 400m hurdles and was going to Atlanta for training. He, like Larry and I, got bumped from our flight to Atlanta on Monday night. Thanks to Lindsay, we were able to get a ride to a hotel near the airport with his friend Driaan.

Number 6: Our hunt with Tsala Safaris was mostly a success. While I didn’t get my cull zebra, I did get my trophy impala and blue wildebeest. I also saw giraffes, roan, zebra, golden wildebeest, sable, mongoose, nyala, kudu, waterbuck, eland, red hartebeest, warthogs, springbuck, gemsbuck, Cape buffalo, and probably others than I have forgotten to name. I still marvel at the ability of our trackers Sharma and Filomon to see animals amidst the tangle of the bushveld as they saw animals that even with binoculars I couldn’t see.

The backstrap from my impala was made into lunch a few days later when we had impala stroganoff. It was exceptionally good. For those that are into these things, that ram was taken with one shot at about 175 yards and his horns measure right at 24 inches.

Now it is time for me to try and shake off the jet lag and get to work helping the other petition candidates for the NRA Board. There are a total of 26 reform candidates running for the Board of Directors and only 11 are on the ballot courtesy of the Nominating Committee. Despite Judge Cohen’s suggestion that we have an open election with anyone who wished to run on the ballot, we are not there yet.

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Guess Who Is On The Ballot For 2025?

August 28, 2024 by 1 Comment

Prepared to be as shocked as I was when I heard the news. I am on the ballot for the 2025 NRA Board of Directors election thanks to my nomination by Todd Vandermyde and the Nomination Committee making me one of the “official” nominees.

I understand thanks are due to committee member Bob Mansell, a reformer, who pushed my nomination. I wish to thank him for his efforts and will do my best to live up to his confidence in me.

As I am out of town – way out of town to be honest – I am going to link to NRA In Danger for the full list of those nominated.

Without diminishing the efforts of those who put me on the ballot through the Nominating Committee, I will continue to seek to also be on the ballot by petition. Being “double nominated” to me indicates that I am on the ballot, first and foremost, due to the efforts of the rank and file voting members. To me, that is supremely meaningful and I hope it will be to you as well.

There were many good people who did not get on the Nominating Committee’s ballot such as former NRA President Jim Porter among others. If he decides to run by petition, I certainly will post his petition and circulate it. There are other reformers who were not nominated and I’ll do the same for them.

If you are eligible to sign my petition, please do so. It can be found here. You can email me at jpr995 AT gmail DOT com for the mailing address. I must submit at least 398 good signatures on October 8th to be on the ballot by petition.

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Running For NRA Board Of Directors (Updated)

August 21, 2024 by 9 Comments

Some people already know this but I am running for the NRA Board of Directors. For a long time I thought I could be most useful outside looking in and reporting on what I saw. I think that is still valuable. Nonetheless, after much discussion between the Complementary Spouse and myself, I decided to take the plunge.

As to why I would submit myself to this, the answer is simple. Someone has to do it and better that the one doing it comes primed for reform. We in the Second Amendment community need a viable NRA. By viable, I mean one that can still put the fear of God in politicians, that will train people in proper firearm use and safety, and that will, in conjunction with other 2A groups, litigate the hell out of gun control laws.

Thanks to my friend Todd Vandermyde, my name has been submitted to the Nominating Committee. Likewise, I have submitted his name in nomination. I have returned the documentation that they have requested and the committee will be meeting in the last part of August to review those names submitted. Obviously, with the parties meeting on August 12th to hammer out the final court order the entire procedure may change. One interpretation of the interim court order is that anyone who met the qualifications – a Life Member of five years – will have their name on the ballot. We shall see.

Regardless of what the Nominating Committee or the court decides, I plan to run by petition. Ideally, I would be a dual-nominated candidate. My rationale is that a candidate who gets on the ballot by petition is there because the members want him or her there. Given my goal is to serve the members to the best of my abilities, that is as it should be.

To have my name placed on the ballot, I need to obtain the signatures of 398 voting members. More is better as some signatures will be ruled invalid. As a reminder, voting members are those who are either Life Members of any level or are Annual Members who have at least five years of continuous membership. The closing date for me to submit the petition with my name and your signatures on it is October 8th. Thus, I would need to have them back in my hand no later than October 1st.

My petition form is below. Please download and print it out on 8.5×11 inch letter size paper in landscape format.

UPDATE: I understand some people have had an issue downloading the petition from Scribd. I am attempting another method of making it available. If you can’t get it one way or another, just email me and I will be happy to send it by email.

John Richardson NRA Petition Form Landscape 2024-2025Download

In addition to your name and dated signature, the petition requires your membership number and your address as listed in the NRA’s files. If you look at the label on your official magazine, you will find your membership number in the upper right corner (see the picture below). You do not need the leading “zeros” in front of your membership number. Alternatively, your membership number is on your membership card.

Any help you can give in obtaining signatures will be gratefully accepted. I don’t care if it is one signature or multiple pages filled with signatures, they all are needed to get me on the ballot.

If you will email me at jpr9954 AT gmail DOT com, I will send you the address where to mail the signed petitions. Normally, I’d just put my address here but I’ve been getting a lot of spam comments from Russia and China. I don’t want to give them any more leeway if I can avoid it.

Again, thank you.

UPDATE II: I have received a very good response from you the readers. In the last two days I have received almost 20 letters with petitions containing almost 40 signatures. When added to what I picked up at the Gun Owners of America GOALS event in Knoxville this past weekend, I am off to a good start

I need to keep the momentum going. If you belong to a gun or sportsmen’s club, ask your fellow members to sign the petition. If you own a gun store or manage a range, please consider placing my petition on your counter. If you have friends who are as fed up as you and me with the grifting and corruption that has occurred, please forward them my petition. If you are a regular on a firearms, hunting, or outdoor forum, please put up a link to this post there. I will be doing that as well.

Remember, you can email me at jpr9954 AT gmail DOT com for instructions on where to send the petition. Given many procedures of the NRA remain in the 20th Century, petitions are required to be mailed back and not scanned/emailed. If you need a short bio to pass on to your friends, I even have one of those. I will say that was hard to write as I’m not the sort sing my own praises.

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Put Todd On The Board, Too!

August 19, 2024 by

Todd Vandermyde of Illinois is a friend and the type of person who needs to be on the Board of Directors of the NRA. For many years, he labored in the trenches of the Illinois General Assembly as a contract lobbyist for the NRA, FFL of Illinois, and Springfield Armory among others. While he is retired as a lobbyist, Todd most recently was an expert witness in Barnett v. Raoul which challenges the Illinois mag and “assault weapon” (sic) ban. Currently, he serves as the president of the Aurora Sportman’s Club which is one of the largest gun clubs in Illinois.

Todd and I have had many discussions on what could have been done to advance our Second Amendment rights if only half of the money spent (wasted!) on Bill Brewer had been spent on 2A litigation. It is enough to make any activist cry.

Todd, like me, wants reform at the NRA and I have submitted his name to the Nominating Committee for consideration. He, like me, is also running as a petition candidate. I have placed his petition below. If you are a voting member of the NRA – Life or an Annual Member with five or more continuous membership without interruption, please consider signing it.

Todd Vandermyde PetitionDownload

Email Todd at tvandermyd AT aol DOT com for his mailing address.

Thanks!