As gun-ban advocates (and even some pro-gun voices) gloat over the announcement of National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre’s resignation, they’re leaving out some important facts. Despite some of NRA’s more recent challenges and criticisms, what they aren’t telling you is that the NRA, under LaPierre’s leadership, has outfoxed them at nearly every turn over the past three decades, leaving those anti-gun groups with very few accomplishments when compared to the sound beatings they’ve repeatedly taken in the political arena.
LaPierre, who has led the NRA since 1991, announced his resignation on May 5, citing health reasons. His last day with the association will be January 31.
“With pride in all that we have accomplished, I am announcing my resignation from the NRA,” LaPierre said. “I’ve been a card-carrying member of this organization for most of my adult life, and I will never stop supporting the NRA and its fight to defend Second Amendment freedom. My passion for our cause burns as deeply as ever.”
The announcement was only hours old when gun-haters began piling on, lighting up the internet with lies, half-truths and propaganda.
“Thoughts and prayers to Wayne LaPierre,” Kris Brown, president of gun-ban group Brady, said in a statement. “He’s going to need them to be able to sleep at night. Wayne LaPierre spent three decades peddling the big lie that more guns make us safer—all at the expense of countless lives.”
John Feinblatt, president of Bloomberg-funded Everytown for Gun Safety, took the opportunity to further trash the NRA and it’s millions of law-abiding members.
“The NRA has been in a doom spiral for years, and Wayne LaPierre’s resignation is yet another massive setback for an organization that’s already at rock bottom,” Feinblatt said in a released statement.
Of course, both statements are pure malarkey. The NRA has been thrashing Brady since back when the organization was named Handgun Control Inc. For proof look no further than the association beating back the very idea of handgun bans—very popular at one time—to the point that Brady had to change its name, twice.
And the association has been a step ahead of Everytown ever since Michael Bloomberg poured several million dollars into forming the organization that, despite its name, has nothing to do with gun safety. As NRA has notched win after win in Washington, D.C, and state houses across the country, Everytown has whimpered along happily spending a billionaire’s money while losing far more than winning.
For a good example, consider concealed carry. In the 1980s, most states restricted concealed carry or made permits very difficult to get. When NRA-backed shall-issue concealed carry was passed in Florida in 1987, the dam was broke. By the 2000s nearly every state issued permits to gun owners without them having to prove they “deserved” them.
Fast forward, and the NRA, under LaPierre, began pushing for “permitless” or constitutional carry. While that has been fought at every step by Brady, Everytown and other gun-ban groups, more than half—27, to be exact—of states now recognize the right to carry for self-defense without having to jump through government hoops and pay a fee.
Another major issue where the NRA won big was protecting lawful gun manufacturers. In the early 2000s, anti-gun advocates hatched a scheme to sue gunmakers out of business. The idea was to have cities sue gun companies for criminal misuse of their products, forcing them to spend money fighting the lawsuits until they would finally give up and shut their doors. Andrew Cuomo, then Bill Clinton’s attorney general, actually described it as “death by a thousand cuts.”
The NRA swooped in and pushed for protection, which was fought tooth and nail by Brady and other gun-ban organizations. In 2005, Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) making it illegal to sue gun makers for criminal misuse of their safe, lawfully made projects. Gun-banners hate the law so much that President Joe Biden still talks about overturning it nearly every time he gets behind a microphone.
Heck, about the only big win the antis have had in the past three decades was getting a federal ban passed in 1984 on so-called “assault weapons.” Seeing that the measure was about to pass, NRA lobbied for and got an amendment to the measure adding a sunset clause. After 10 years of blatant ineffectiveness, the ban was allowed to sunset—again largely because of NRA advocacy at the time.
Of course, there are many other big NRA wins and big anti-gun losses over those years. In fact, it’s likely that without the NRA our freedoms would be greatly diminished compared to what we enjoy now.
Those gun-haters gloating over LaPierre’s resignation are simply foolish. I have no doubt they’ll continue to lose to the NRA for years to come under its new leadership.