Texas AG Ken Paxton

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Will Texas Politics Impact NRA EVP Succession?

January 11, 2024 by 1 Comment

With so much attention focussed on the trial involving the NRA in New York City, scant attention has been paid to who succeeds Wayne LaPierre as CEO and Executive Vice President of the NRA. I think most observers would agree that Andrew Arulanandam, who will serve as the interim EVP upon Wayne’s January 31st resignation, is a place holder and not a serious contender for the permanent position.

An article by Stephen Gutowski in The Reload posted today may give some clue as to a potential successor. After discussing what I called “the dueling letters” regarding post-employment compensation and health issues of Wayne, Gutowski provides this potential clue.

Prominent NRA supporters have already begun publicly circulating at least one alternative. Former NRA Institute of Legislative Action deputy executive director and general counsel Wade Callender, who helped coordinate with the group’s state affiliate in the successful 2022 Supreme Court Bruen case, has already received the backing of several elected officials. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R.) and State Senator Drew Springer (R.) posted a call for Callender to take over the NRA’s top perch on social media this week.

Callender left the position as General Counsel and Deputy Executive Director of NRA-ILA due, in large part, to the growing interference from the NRA’s outside counsel William Brewer III. Callender confirmed this to me in a face-to-face conversation we held at the 2022 Gun Rights Policy Conference held in Irving, Texas. He has since returned to private practice in Dallas area.

Texas AG Ken Paxton has been a stalwart supporter of the Second Amendment and has signed on to a number of amicus briefs in support of it. Paxton, who was last year impeached by the Texas House of Representatives, was acquitted on all charges in the trial in the Texas Senate. The move to impeach Paxton was led by Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan who is his arch political enemy. Phelan, who is considered a RINO by Texas conservatives, and has been asked to resign by the leaders of the Texas Republican Party.

After the murders of school children in Uvalde, Phelan formed a House Select Committee on Community Safety to review all firearms-related legislation. This included red flag laws and raising the age to purchase a modern sporting rifle. While the committee composition was officially seven Republicans and six Democrats, the Republican chair had been a Democrat until just recently.

With this as a background, Randy Kozuch, Executive Director of NRA-ILA and Chairman of the NRA-PVF, endorsed Dade Phelan and rated him A+.

This brought pushback from a number of conservatives including Dana Loesch who served as a special assistant to Wayne at one time. She said of Phelan that he “was an obstacle while fighting red flag laws, and dragged out our fight to win Constitutional carry.” Others are saying they are dropping their NRA membership or looking for alternatives.

One must wonder who pushed Randy Kozuch to give an A+ rating to Phelan who by most accounts is a RINO and who is marginal on gun rights. Was it the Old Guard on the NRA led by NRA President Charles Cotton who is a Texan? Was it Bill Brewer who saw an ally in a RINO politician who was barely so-so on gun rights? If Brewer, was it with knowledge that it would anger true Second Amendment supporters in Texas?

Giving Phelan the A+ rating and endorsement obviously angered his arch-enemies Ken Paxton and Sen. Drew Springer as the next day they endorsed Wade Callender for EVP. This move by Paxton and Springer is definitely a call for new blood to lead the NRA and a repudiation of the Old Guard.

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CCRKBA Says Anti-Gunners Stymied By The Facts

November 9, 2017 by

The Citizens’ Committee Right to Keep and Bear Arms issued a statement yesterday regarding the Sutherland Springs church shooting. They say the gun prohibitionists are stymied by the facts given that Stephen Willeford, the nearby hero who shot the killer, used an AR-15 to stop more carnage.

I have to disagree with Alan Gottlieb on this. While rational people would look at the facts and say that the presence of a firearm prevented further bloodshed, the gun prohibitionists ignore facts. They work on emotion and the facts be damned. The fact that Mr. Willeford used an AR-15 was ignored yesterday when Sen. Dianne Feinstein and a coterie of her power and control mad colleagues introduced the Assault Weapons Ban of 2017.

Rational people like thee and me, Alan, and Texas AG Ken Paxton recognize that an armed man using an AR-15 helped to end the killing sooner than later. You can read Alan’s statement on this below:

ANTI-GUNNERS STYMIED BY FACTS IN TEXAS SHOOTING, SAYS CCRKBA

BELLEVUE, WA – As more facts emerge from the tragic Sutherland Springs, Texas church shooting, gun prohibitionists and their cheerleaders in the media are stymied in their efforts to exploit this case, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“The perpetrator’s rampage was stopped by a law abiding citizen, using an AR15-type rifle,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “The shooter bought his guns at retail and passed background checks because the military failed to forward his criminal records to the National Instant Check System. Now it is being reported that the gunman once escaped from a mental health facility in New Mexico.

“Isn’t it ironic,” he mused, “that a private citizen, who the anti-gunners would prefer to be defenseless, used a rifle that gun control extremists have tried to ban with the claim that such guns do not belong in civilian hands?”

Gottlieb noted that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told two different cable news networks that adding more gun control laws that penalize honest citizens and interfere with their right of self-defense is not the answer.

“We stand in agreement with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who told both MSNBC and Fox News that Kelley had already violated laws against murder, so another gun law would not prevent this from happening,” Gottlieb said. “Sunday’s incident proves that the kind of gun controls advocated by politicians and anti-gun groups would have prevented the heroic actions of Stephen Willeford and Johnnie Langendorff, and may have allowed the shooter to continue his rampage.

“Mr. Willeford’s heroic intervention and his pursuit of the wounded madman, with Mr. Langendorff, is exactly what the Second Amendment is about,” Gottlieb observed. “They followed the killer and kept him covered with a semiautomatic rifle until lawmen arrived.

“America is blessed to have men like these,” he said. “But gun control extremists? Not so much.”