Last week was the NRA Annual Meeting. The big news wasn’t the guns introduced – which I didn’t hear much about. It was how the leadership elections played out.
The best sources are John Richardson’s No Lawyers – Only Guns and Money blog and Stephen Gutowski’s The Reload. Both have the blow by blow of the elections and the fight over moving the headquarters from Virginia to Texas. (That one got spicy fast).
The TLDR. Although the establishment managed to elect Bob Barr as NRA President, the First and Second VP slots, as well as the EVP/CEO slot went to reformers. Moreover, the new EVP/CEO, Doug Hamlin has started shaking up things and reminding the NRA staff that they are there for the members. That they need to regain the members’ trust.
Those are very good first steps. The revelations of the previous regime’s shenanigans resulted in plunging membership (and revenues) as well as soaring legal bills. Extremely bad for an organization to continue being a going concern.
I am cautiously optimistic. I’m going to watch to see what Mr. Hamlin does over the next six months. If he continues to make these kinds of reforms, I’ll rejoin the NRA.
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