NRA In Danger On Subtlety

NRA In Danger had a very interesting post this afternoon. It dealt with how the cabal has become subtle as they go about clinging to power.

From the post:

Has “leadership” turned over a new leaf? No, they just got subtle. Instead of using the big-name anti-reformers, they substituted ones not so well-known (they have a bench of 30+) and made sure the important committees (important from the standpoint of hiding corruption) had an anti-reformer chair and an anti-reformer majority.

Read the whole thing and read the stats presented. If anything it points to how important this next Board election will be if we are to reclaim the NRA for the members and not for the enrichment of the grifters.

Getting petition candidates on the ballot will be a necessary first step. Here again is the link to all the petition candidates on the reform platform. Remember, original signed petitions need to be to Rocky Marshall by September 30th. Time is of the essence!

NRA Petition Candidate – Todd Figard

Todd Figard is a retired quality engineer whose career made him a believer in compliance and corrective action plans. That certainly sound like something the NRA could use! Moreover, he is a certified instructor across multiple firearms disciplines and has served as the Lead Safety Inspector for the past couple of years at the Great American Outdoor Show and the NRA Annual Meeting for displayed firearms.

His bio is below:

You can return Todd’s petition either to him directly at 1640 Reimer Rd, Wadsworth, OH 44281. 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.

We have about two weeks to go in which to secure the necessary signatures to get Todd and the others on the ballot. The goal is to have a reform candidate for every slot just like the cabal has loaded the ballot with those who support the status quo. It was defending Wayne, the grifters, and the status quo that put the NRA on trial in New York!

NRA Petition Candidate – Jason Wilson

Jason Wilson is an entrepreneur and the CEO of Lucid Optics. I can’t swear that I’ve met him at the SHOT Show but I do know I’ve visited the Lucid Optics booth many a time. They make good stuff and I have one of their “blue dot” scopes. The Board and the NRA need entrepreneurs who will think outside the box like Jason has done with Lucid. In addition to being in the firearms business, Jason is a competitor or has been in everything from 3-gun to PRS.

Here is more about Jason from his bio:

You can return Jason’s petition either to him directly at 1697 N. 8th St. West, Riverton, WY 82501 . 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.

Hopes For Reform At NRA Dashed

When the NRA Board of Directors meeting ended on the Monday after the NRA Annual Meeting many, including me, had high hopes that reform was finally coming to the organization. Reformers had won two out of three of the officer positions, the EVP, and a majority on the Nominating Committee. This was on the heels of the resounding victories of the Four for Reform. Doug Hamlin, the new CEO and EVP, started making good changes and signaled a new openness.

However, as I noted at the end of May, how newly elected NRA President Bob Barr handled committee assignments would be the key to showing the court in New York just how much the NRA had changed and embraced reform. I went on to add that Charles Cotton and David Coy must not be allowed to serve on the Audit and Finance Committees respectively.

I began to be more than a little concerned when it came out that Barr had made Cotton the new chair of the Ethics Committee. That was the harbinger of more to come as it became obvious that Barr had ignored his mother’s warning about running with the “wrong crowd”.

Yesterday, Barr’s appointments to the Audit, Finance, Ethics, Bylaws and Resolutions, and Legal Affairs Committees were announced.

NRA President Bob Barr has announced some committee assignments:

Audit

Charles Cotton – Chairman
E. Wilkinson – Vice Chairman
Charles Beers
Curtis Jenkins
Rocky Marshall

Bylaws & Resolutions

Carol Frampton – Chairman
Charles Cotton – Vice Chairman
Scott Bach
Bob Barr
Larry Craig
Joel Friedman
Jim Wallace

Ethics

Charles Cotton – Chairman
Joel Friedman – Vice Chairman
Clel Baudler
Jay Printz
Barbara Rumpel
Mark Vaughan

Finance

David Coy – Chairman
Ron Schmeits – Vice Chairman
Joe Allbaugh
Bill Bachenberg
Isaac Demarest
Patricia Clark
Allan Cors
Charles Cotton
Joel Friedman
Curtis Jenkins
Carolyn Meadows
Bill Miller
Buz Mills
Amanda Suffecool
Mark Vaughan

Legal Affairs

Sandra Froman – Chairman
Scott Bach – Vice Chairman
Bob Barr
Charles Cotton
Carol Frampton
Charles Hiltunen
Curtis Jenkins
John Sigler

The first thing you will notice is that Charles Cotton is on every single one of these important committees and retains his chairmanship of the Audit Committee to go with his newly appointed chairmanship of the Ethics Committee. The next thing you notice is that David Coy has retained his chairmanship of the Finance Committee.

The only one of the Four for Reform members to be appointed to any committee was Rocky Marshall who was appointed to the Audit Committee. I find this disappointing as their election is being used by the NRA in its court filings to assert that things have changed and no special monitor was needed. While Rocky’s appointment is good and proper, why was not Jeff Knox put on Bylaws and Resolutions as he probably knows more about the Bylaws than any member of that committee. Likewise, would not it have been wise to put Judge Phil Journey, the only jurist on the Board, on the Legal Affairs Committee.

With the exception of the Finance Committee which has has four known reformers on it (out of 15 total members), the remaining committees have one and perhaps two known reformers on them. If Barr wanted to signal to the members of the NRA and to Judge Cohen that things had changed at the NRA, this certainly was not the way to do it.

While I don’t have a crystal ball on what will happen in the remedial phase of the New York trial, I think the odds are better than even that a special monitor will now be appointed to oversee the NRA’s finances. It should be noted that this monitor will have nothing to do with functions and programs of the NRA including its political functions. While this will put me at odds with some friends on the Board who are reformers, I think that the special monitor will be a requirement if the NRA is ever to crawl out of the morass it finds itself in.

UPDATE: I can fully understand the frustration that Judge Phil Journey must have felt that caused him to file a motion to intervene in the New York trial. That was on July 3rd and he obviously saw things that are now only coming to light. It has been suggested to me that the appointment of Charles Cotton to head the Ethics Committee was specifically meant to go after Judge Journey for having the temerity to break ranks.

Stephen Gutowski has more on Journey’s motion here along with the NRA’s denials.

You Did It! Frank Tait Is On The Ballot

Thanks to everyone who signed petitions for Frank Tait, he beat the “margin of Wayne” and is on the ballot for the 2022 NRA Board of Directors election. He could not have done it without your help and the help of many others who want change at the NRA.

This means that instead of being forced to choose between voting for one of the hand-picked “friends of Wayne” or not voting, you now have a choice.

If you are a voting member, now is the time to start talking to your friends who are also voting members. A personal recommendation from you should mean a lot more than the usual propaganda that you see month after month in the official journal.

Remember it is our NRA and not Wayne’s NRA.

UPDATE: From Frank on getting on the ballot.

The petitions were “beyond the margin of Wayne” and I am on the ballot!

I have to get my approved 150-word biographical sketch in by December 17 so it can be included with the ballots.

This would not be possible without the support of many great people and organizations around the country including the participants at the IDPA Liberty Match, Bitter of Shall Not be Questioned Blog, and the members of Falls Township Rifle and Pistol Association, the participants of the Nineteenth Bi-Annual Machinegun Shoot at Eastern Lancaster County Rod & Gun Club, and the Montgomery County Federation of Sportsmens Clubs Trapshooting League.

I am grateful for this tremendous support and am committed to reforming the board and management of the NRA