Wayne LaPierre's legacy at the NRA

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NationalMatch

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Here is a post by an actual NRA board member from another gun forum. It was posted on 1/5/4.

[begin quote]

Still sitting in Dallas as I type this. Just want you to get the lay of the land... The NRA BOD meetings have a no phone or computer policy. Your phone has to be locked into some sort of electronic blocking case - and as you exit the room you can hand your phone over to be unlocked. There were 58 or 59 of the 76 BOD members in attendance.

Wayne LaPiere tendered his resignation in executive (closed door, confidential to the board) session about 10 am. He stated that it would be effective on 1/31/24

As I sat there wondering what I was going to do with the info, while knowing it was a secret that could not leave the room until the NRA made it public, and knowing that it was too juicy to not get out...

I heard and saw the shock in the faces of many board members, and saw the grief in the reactions of others. Some of these folks have been friends with Wayne for 20+ years, while others looked up to and grew up with Wayne. My views are that no matter your opinion of Wayne, he did some really good stuff over the years. And the various law suits are taking their tole on him. He looks worn out and not healthy.

Executive session was paused while we took a lunch break (12:50 pm) and within 10 minutes my phone was blowing up. Saw the FOX news report as the first official news report. From there I could respond with the report and the public info that was shared.

Lets pause here and get the lay of the land.
is
NRA facing the BIG lawsuit that starts monday the 8th. A public search will give you the background on this for those looking for details, but not only is Leticia James and NY going after the NRA, they sued 4 persons personally. Those four were instrumental in running the offices of the NRA. Wayne, John Frasier, Josh Powell and Woody Phillips.

Wayne resigning does not impact his involvement in the lawsuits because he is staying on till 1/31/24 and so will still be EVP during all this. AND he is still personally named.

Josh Powell just settled (think it came out publicly on 1/5/24) with NY and so is out of the mix. Since he had been terminated by NRA he was on his own for legal bills. Search and you will find his details of settlement. May I suggest the blog of John Richardson at OnlyGunsAndMoney he has been an NRA watcher for years.

Now lets go to what happens next. Did you see the news that Joe DeBergelis (spelling??) was terminated about 3 weeks ago. Its in play too. He ran the operations of the org under Wayne. And based on the money being poured into the lawsuits - to protect the NRA, doing it on a skeleton crews and drastically slashed budget. Remember, NY's goal is to take down and end the largest 2A organization in the US. The NRA is somewhere around 300 times the size of the next largest organization in the USA.

The NRA does not have a lot of depth of crew right now. With COVID reductions, then the lawsuit stacked on top of that - who wants to be there, who was replaced when someone left ( and did they have the budget for it?) You each hear not one more dollar statements, those have had an impact, probably not the impact each was looking for, but an impact none the less.

So Joe DeBergelis's replacement is Andrew Arulanandam who had been the communications guy. He has been with the NRA for quite a while.

o understand Andrew's place in this - he was the connection between the PR firm Ackerman McQueen and the NRA. He released statements, approved who could speak for the NRA, insured a unified and directed statement for things when things get ugly. Remember, when something happens, they want a tight, thoughful and consise public statement that will give the world an idea where the NRA is going, whats going to happen and how the NRA will continue to support their 2A rights.

Andrew A has been learning Joe's position for the past three weeks, then this bombshell happens. Many knew Wayne would leave at some point. He is of a certain age, this has been ugly and hard for he and Susan, etc. But no one knew it would be now. I am extremely certain that the Executive Board did not know... till it happened.

Per the Bylaws, Andrew in his new position, will roll up to fill Waynes position as of 1/31
He will continue to do that until the next Board meeting which will take place in May at the annual meeting in Dallas.

From there the Board has to make a decision of what's next. At this time, no one has an idea of what's next, we know the actions to take, but not timing, or candidates, or etc... Much up in the air.

Now - back to the fact that in that 2 hours that the board was enclosed in executive session with thier phones in lock down. Andrew and his crew did a stellar job of putting out a press release, getting the story out in the way THEY wanted it out, and controlling the narative in a time when rumors and opinions run rampant. THIS shows leadership, and something that I personally have not seen for a while ( since the time that NY went after NRA, and Ack Mc splintered away and many wondered what their new roles were)

So for a bit - I think the NRA is in hands that will try to sort things out, handle things as they come up and help guide the ship through the lawsuit waters. Once we come out the other side, we will start to gather all the deck chairs and see what we have to work with.

[End quote]

https://www.rugerforum.com/threads/nra-bod-happenings-1-5-24.312072/
 

mahatma

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Not only OKC. Almost every gun club uses NRA insurance to keep their range open. I'm retired President of the Ponca City Gun Club. When Wayne's excesses started surfacing, I took offense and started looking for alternative insurance to divest ourselves of the NRA.
It wasn't happening. What is 5 figure insurance went to high 6 figure insurance.
We had to, like most ranges stay with the NRA insurance.
I sure hope this forces the members to revolt and replace the board with one that is dedicated to preserving our rights more than creating a cush life for the board.
What I've seen is that old term organizations tend to trend that way. Start a noble charitable cause and it evolves into a top heavy group reaping rewards from the donations.
NRA and Wounded Warriors come to mind.
So do you have any documentation or evidence that Wounded Warriors are corrupt too?
 

BillM

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Found it. From a thread on The Firing Line. A poster asked, "Will the membership come back now that WLP is leaving the NRA?"

One of their mods replied: "...probably not until the board of directors and other WLP sycophants are also gone. The board continued to support LaPierre even after it became clear that he was scamming the organization. The board approved his 17 MILLION dollar retirement payout. The board was all set to approve purchasing a mansion in Texas for LaPierre using the organizations' (i.e. OUR) money. The board approved the changes to the by-laws that were proposed a few years ago, and the board helped campaign to persuade the membership to approve those changes. The board (most of it) is as rotten as LaPierre is. 'If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.' "
https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=617922&page=2
The NRA has devolved into a monolith defined by its corruption and the board enables it. LaPierre resigned but the board remains. Until the board dissolves, it's going to be the same NRA and, no way they clean themselves.
Amen.
 

dennishoddy

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So do you have any documentation or evidence that Wounded Warriors are corrupt too?
We had a huge thread about Wounded Warriors on this forum several years ago when others doing the research showed that a lot more money was going to "administrative funding and salaries" vs being distributed to wounded Veterans.
They were heading to where the NRA is now.
 

mahatma

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We had a huge thread about Wounded Warriors on this forum several years ago when others doing the research showed that a lot more money was going to "administrative funding and salaries" vs being distributed to wounded Veterans.
They were heading to where the NRA is now.
Ok, just have not seen anything bad about them except your comment so I was looking for some substantiating information to support your claim.
 

BillM

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