Posted on 07/18/2019 3:59:14 PM PDT by Yo-Yo
It’s time for Wayne LaPierre to retire.
I have put this off for a while as I waited to see how events would develop. The leaders at the NRA and I’m talking about YOU, the board of directors, as well as the hired help, have spent years … decades … setting up a system which gives key people massive financial rewards. In my view, it’s at least malfeasance, and it might even be corruption. Monster salaries, private jets, slush funds, insane budgets spent on TV shows, as well as PR and advertising campaigns designed to do nothing more than generate more funds which can be siphoned off for dubious programs, putting millions into the pockets of vendors (and maybe staffers and directors and even family members of key staffers), have eroded the confidence of members and gun owners to the point where we now see a campaign of “no money until Wayne is gone.”
Whether he directed it, was part of it, or just didn’t see what was happening, this all metastasized under the watch of Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. The buck stops there.
It has greatly jeopardized what most members believe should be the NRA’s core mission – protecting the Second Amendment and our gun rights. In fact, it looks as though the leadership has subverted the core mission into just making themselves rich.
In the world of corporate leadership, when the CEO has failed at this level it’s time for a new leader.
We need a strong NRA as we enter the 2020 election season. Yes, the NY AG office will continue its investigation, but we can’t realistically expect those who led this organization into the sorry state we now see to be the ones to fix it.
LaPierre now is a symbol of this financial meltdown. In short, no matter what is done, if he remains in this post (or has any role at the NRA), it is utterly impossible to restore the trust of the membership.
Wayne, if you care about the movement … if you care about the fight for gun rights -- recognize that you now constitute an impediment. Take your millions and retire. Staying on to fight the good fight won’t do.
Do the right thing. ~ Tom
Click here to listen to the podcast where Tom discusses this topic. CLICK HERE.
Tom Gresham
Author, outdoorsman, gun rights activist, and firearms enthusiast for more than five decades, Tom Gresham hosts Tom Gresham's Gun Talk, the first nationally-syndicated radio show about guns and the shooting sports, and is also the producer and co-host of the Guns & Gear, GunVenture and First Person Defender television series.
I hate to see the in-fighting but the NRA needs to be reorganized.
Chris Cox resigned.
He just started his own consulting business - Capitol 6 Advisors.
Benefactor member here. No more money from me until some house cleaning is completed. Not begun, completed.
Certainly the NRA should continue with those things (when did they stop?). But EVERY pro-gun organization MUST defend the Second Amendment, or there will BE NO gun organizations (or guns).
I’ve been a member for 51 years; my father bought me an annual membership when I was 12 and maintained it until I graduated from high school. I’ve been a Life Member for 28 years and a Benefactor Life Member for the past five.
I’m sorry to say this, but I agree, it’s time for Wayne to ride off into the sunset and be replaced by a fervent, take-no-prisoners supporter of the 2nd Amendment who will exercise fiscal responsibility and restraint, lead efforts to push for local and state pro-2nd Amendment legislation and lead lobbying efforts at the national level.
Same here. Joined in '56 and worked my way up to Benefactor. Still dunned for more contributions, including leaving them something in my will. No thanks. Money now goes to GOA.
I was turned off on Pierre years ago, during the Koresh siege. He was on a TV show with Schumer, talking about the gun fight. Schumer held up a 50 cal BMG round and said "This is a 50MM cartridge, which is what Koresh is using.", then held up a 9mm round and said "This is a 9MM cartridge which is what the FBI is using."
I clapped my hands, figuring Pierre would tear him apart on that, along the lines of "This man either doesn't know what he's talking about, or is a liar - in which case he shouldn't be making gun laws."
NADA. Pierre just sat there like a bump on a log. Not a freaking word in rebuttal. I nearly had a stroke. From then on, when an NRA article praising Pierre's work came out, I gagged and passed on reading it.
Some months later, I just happened to catch a newscast about Schumer and one of the pols came up to him and said "Nice work on that 50MM." and he just gave that slimy smirk he always gives. I could have punched the tube.
I still give the NRA about $20 a year, honestly, I think I do so from some form of psychological “muscle” memory, for the lack of a better term. However, the bulk of my money goes to the GOA and a few other regional organizations that fight much harder for the 2nd Amendment. About a year after Waco, I was working in a convenience store when an ATF agent came in and I struck up a conversation about what had happened at Waco. He was adamant that the Feds had been fired at with .50 cal rounds. I politely told him that I was a veteran who was very familiar with the 50BMG and at the ranges involved the agents who had taken cover behind the cars were proof that no 50BMG rounds were fired. He took a hard look at me and I told him if I had been firing such a round at those individuals I could shot clean through the car and still them without any problem whatsoever.
His response was to ask me if I thought he was lying, I said I doubted that, but that there were innumerable 50 caliber cartridges that could have been used that would not have penetrated the cars, but that the 50BMG could and would chop through a civilian car lengthwise at far greater ranges, and that I knew this from my personal experience. He shut up paid for his stuff and left. That really pissed me off. The fire part of it pissed me off because everyone knows that smoke grenades get hot when they are deployed, I chalk that up to simple gov’t employee stupidity.
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