I'm Running for the NRA Board of Directors

[steveaqha]

I posted this guidance on the blog on Jan 29th.

Vote YES On NRA Incorporation Amendment​

John

I gave up on the NRA year's ago for many reasons one of those being that the upper echelon seemed to have become a good ol boy's club for the wealthy with common supporters just a number and a fund for those in leadership and their corruption. Hopefully you will be voted in and maybe down the road I will join again. Time will tell...

 

[Lone Star Bluegrass]

Can you briefly discuss how you envision the NRA supporting the shooting sports, please?

 

[jpr9954]

I gave up on the NRA year's ago for many reasons one of those being that the upper echelon seemed to have become a good ol boy's club for the wealthy with common supporters just a number and a fund for those in leadership and their corruption. Hopefully you will be voted in and maybe down the road I will join again. Time will tell...

Thank you for hoping I'll get voted in. I appreciate that.

I hope the changes will encourage you and many others to rejoin the NRA.

I can tell you that they are serious about not wasting money anymore. In years gone by, voting members who took the official magazine digitally would get their board election ballots sent to them by First Class Mail. This year they did an analysis beforehand and found that by sending out a free copy of the magazine with the ballot bound in it to voting digital subscribers they could save over $100,000 in postage costs. And that's what they did.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

I've been running away from the NRA for at least thirty years. I pulled out when they started selling cancer insurance they knew wasn't worth the paper it was written on.

 

[jpr9954]

Can you briefly discuss how you envision the NRA supporting the shooting sports, please?

I'm going to start out by saying I'm not a competitor and have never shot in competition so I'll leave that out of the discussion.

I envision the revamped NRA supporting the shooting sports in a three-pronged approach.

• Training and education
• Advocacy including lobbying
• Litigation

Since 2020, we have had millions of new gun owners purchase their first firearm. Many of these new gun owners are women and/or minorities. They need basic instruction in firearms safety, firearms handling, and shooting. Some of this could be done online but the majority needs to be in-person. The NRA traditionally has done a good job with this but it seems the training department has become a forgotten part of the NRA. This needs a serious reinvigoration. Groups like USCCA have done a better job of preparing people to carry concealed. The more people that can be trained, the more that will respect the Second Amendment and the shooting sports.

Along with basic instruction, the NRA needs to work with state wildlife agencies and hunting groups on a) hunter safety and b) new hunter apprentice type programs.

With regard to advocacy, the NRA and its lobbying arm, NRA-ILA, needs to work cooperatively with other hunting and 2A groups like SCI, DSC, Second Amendment Foundation, and especially the non-NRA affiliated gun rights groups who are in the state legislative trenches. An email I received earlier today from Bloomberg's Everytown said they are making state legislatures a priority.

In terms of firearms or wildlife related legislation, the NRA needs to work hand-in-hand with these other groups to promote the good bills such as national reciprocity and the Hearing Protection Act and to kill bad legislation. Further, the NRA needs to make clear that the Dept of the Interior and the USFWS has to stop settling lawsuits with groups like the US Humane Society and the Center for Biological Diversity. Under the Biden Admin, all these groups had to do was file a lawsuit and a settlement would be in the works. It also needs to force Trump to undo much of the closure of public lands to hunting that happened under Biden's Sec of Interior Deb Haaland.

Finally, litigation. This is not cheap but is essential. I am pleased to see that the NRA-ILA is now starting to file more amicus briefs and to cooperate on litigation with groups like SAF, NSSF, and Firearms Policy Coalition. I think a good part of this is due to a recognition that the NRA can't do it all, that the other groups are good at it, and that the new Dir of Litigation Joe Greenlee came from one of the other groups and knows all the 2A players. I would expand this to include groups like SCI when they are fighting anti-hunting legislation.

I certainly don't have all the answers. One of the major reasons I decided to run for the board is I saw the NRA help kill a permitless concealed carry bills in North Carolina because it was not their bill. Those days have got to be over.

 

[jpr9954]

I've been running away from the NRA for at least thirty years. I pulled out when they started selling cancer insurance they knew wasn't worth the paper it was written on.

As a retired financial planner, I certainly can't disagree with you regarding cancer or any dread disease insurance. A good disability plan and a good health plan should take care of it.

 

[buffybr]

I already voted, and you got my vote.

 

[jpr9954]

I already voted, and you got my vote.

Thanks so much.

 

[yamoon]

Voted today, first time in years. Voted for all the nominated by partition the rest, just threw darts.
Mike

 

[jpr9954]

Time for an update. I got this in my email today:

Congratulations! Based on the draft report of the ballot results, you have been elected to the NRA Board of Directors for a three-year term ending in 2028. The newly elected Directors will be recognized at the Annual Meeting of Members in Atlanta, Georgia, Saturday, April 26, and will take office upon the adjournment of the meeting. The Board will meet on Monday, April 28. Authorization to attend the meetings will be emailed to you under separate cover. We look forward to seeing you there.

I won! On our ticket of reformers, 19 out of 28 won. If you don't count the requested write-in votes, then it broke down as 19 wins, 7 losses out of 26 on the ballot.

I don't have a complete list of the winners or losers nor our rank order position yet.

To those that gave me their vote, thank you very much and I will work my hardest to be worthy of your trust.

 

[steveaqha]

As the title says, I'm running for the NRA Board of Directors and I need your help to get on the ballot. I know a lot of members here are also members of the NRA.

I have been a critic of the grifting and corruption at the NRA as well as a critic of the refusal of some Board members to acknowledge their part in allowing it to happen by looking the other way. If you have read my blog, No Lawyers - Only Guns and Money, you know where I'm coming from. My reporting of events at the NRA has even made it into the trial of the NRA in New York which was a shock to me.

I had long thought I could do more to help reform the NRA being on the outside looking in. My viewpoint has changed. After discussing it with my wife, I have decided to run for the Board of Directors. While my name has been submitted to the Nominating Committee as one of the reform candidates, I'm not going to hold my breath that I will be nominated by them.

I can still be on the ballot by petition and that is the alternative that I am following. I need to gather 398 valid signatures from voting members and submit them by October 8th. Voting members are either NRA Life Members of whatever level or Annual Members with 5-years of continuous, unbroken membership.

My petition can be downloaded from here.

If you are a voting member, please consider signing my petition. My goal in running as a reform candidate is to see the NRA returned to its former glory. By that I mean training thousand of new shooters monthly, working with hunters to protect our sport from animal rights activists, and strongly advocating for the Second Amendment on both Capitol Hill and in the state legislatures.

To get my mailing address, either send a private message to me here or use the email in the link with the petition.

I want to thank Jerome for granting me permission to put this request up here on AH.

I would if I could, was a long time member and maybe again if I ever feel they have cleaned their act up..

 

[mdwest]

Congratulations John! Thats huge news!

Im going to be overseas for a few weeks.. when I get back I'll reach out.. maybe there are some things the NRA and TX-SCTP (I am on the board there) could partner or work on together to help promote shooting sports among young people.

Exciting times!

 

[Adam S]

Good to hear! Congratulations!

 

[Arctic97]

Great to hear. Thanks for letting us know how it turned out. Glad we could help. Hope you and the new crew can make some changes to get things headed back on a common sense course. Best of luck going forward!

 

[Badjer]

Congratulations!

 

[JimP]

Congratulations, now for the hard part.

 

[bashaw]

Congratulations, I signed the petitions and voted for all 28, I hope you guys can make some changes the NRA has done nothing but ignore Oregonians about the unconstitutional laws Oregon has been passing. It's been hard to tell my friends to join NRA when they won’t help when we need it.

 

[Doug3006]

Good news and congratulations. Now maybe we can take this organization back!

 

[jpr9954]

Congratulations, I signed the petitions and voted for all 28, I hope you guys can make some changes the NRA has done nothing but ignore Oregonians about the unconstitutional laws Oregon has been passing. It's been hard to tell my friends to join NRA when they won’t help when we need it.

I really hope to be appointed to the Legislative Policy Committee so as to shake things up at ILA. There is no excuse to ignore crap gun control legislation and go down without a fight.

 

[Fixfire]

Congratulations!! As a veteran of dozens of BODs, I’ve found boards with large memberships rarely effective. Will be interesting to see where y’all take the NRA. Good luck!!