Virtually all of the news surrounding the National Rifle Association has been bad for weeks now. From an outsider’s perspective, none of the principal parties involved — Wayne LaPierre, Oliver North, the NRA Board and Ackerman McQueen — have covered themselves in glory.
At the same time, there’s no doubt that those who work hardest to restrict or even eliminate the individual right to keep and bear arms in this country are opportunistically using the NRA’s troubles to attack and weaken the largest, most influential advocate for gun rights.
Chuck Michel is the president of the California Rifle and Pistol Association, the official state association of the NRA in the Golden State. He’s also an attorney and has been at the center of some of the most significant legal efforts to defend and extend Second Amendment rights in California and nation-wide.
Michel has just put up the following statement on his Facebook page about the NRA situation. It’s worth your time to read the whole thing.
THOUGHTS ABOUT REPORTS ON THE NRA’S FINANCIAL ISSUES, AND SUPPORTING CRPA AND NRA-ILA
I am being inundated with questions about the reports concerning the appropriateness of certain NRA financial practices. Although I do no work on the corporate side of NRA so have no inside information, as the President of the CRPA I recognize that these reports are troubling to many, and understandably so. Many questions are being asked.
Of course the anti-gun media and groups that hate and want to destroy and bury the NRA so they can destroy the Second Amendment are taking advantage of the situation, piling on, and twisting and spinning every report to harm the NRA and advance their stated agenda of turning NRA members against the association. It’s part of their published plan. They recognize that the NRA is the ONLY pro 2A group with any real influence. So they want to take it down and will do anything to make it so. Their reports about NRA’s overall financial condition are particularly inaccurate, because they are not aware of the interrelated funding vehicles that NRA can put to use to meet its financial obligations.
The NRA Board of Directors is well aware of the issues, and of its legal fiduciary responsibilities to the NRA as an incorporated non-profit association (not to any individual employee or vendor). The Board is being advised by its own legal counsel, and there are multiple other lawyers representing the interests of the Association itself (again, not any individual employee or vendor). It appears that the NRA Board is asking the right questions and taking appropriate actions to get to the bottom of things, though it is understandably working behind closed doors and away from the eyes of the biased media to minimze the ability of NRA’s enemies to use this situation to do more damage to the NRA.