I never said it was their only purpose.
But you argued the others required that one. And didn’t notice what I’ve seen gun rights people say in every discussion about this case (including the comments on LeagalEagle’s video). The NRA has apparently avoided 2nd Amendment cases they feel they should have taken.
It’s why lots of 2nd Amendment types no longer support the NRA. They are the ones saying the NRA only cares to help gun manufacturers, not the gun control side.
What’s funny about this whole thing is that my knee-jerk reaction was that the NY AG’s actions are excessive; i.e., I’m skeptical that the organization is irreparable (my personal feelings about the NRA aside.) But bad arguments are bad arguments, and actual do more to harm the anti-AG “side” than help it. This is a prime example for the “Stop Helping” thread, wherever that ended up.
I think the NYAG needs to investigate these charges very thoroughly; expect charges to come out November 4th.
Interesting follow-up: Former NRA chief of staff releases a book about the misdeeds there, saying ‘Gun owners across America should be horrified by what I saw inside of the NRA.’ He’s actually named in the lawsuit, and if he’s writing a tell-all book he’s probably not going to be afraid to point out where bodies are buried.
James’ effort to dissolve the NRA is unprecedented, says Michael West, the senior attorney at the New York Council of Nonprofits, but then again, so is the scale of corruption detailed in the lawsuit. When James’ office began its investigation of the NRA more than a year ago, West doubted the attorney general would actually try to dissolve the group, telling me in May 2019, “The more you go for a homerun, the likelier it’s gonna be a swing and a miss.”
West could not think of a nonprofit of comparable size or scope that New York or any other state has shut down as James seeks to do with the NRA. According to New York state nonprofit law, in the event of dissolution, the courts have to disburse those assets to another nonprofit that shares the same values. The only recent similar case is the dissolution of the Trump Foundation, but that was on a far smaller scale, involving a much simpler nonprofit that just doled out cash without any kind of actual operations. It was easy for courts to release the remaining Trump money to uncontroversial charities like the United Way.
The National Rifle Association, by contrast, has a clearly defined mission, actually does stuff, and has real assets. Aside from any money the group may have left, the NRA also has less tangible but arguably more valuable assets: namely, its branding and membership rolls. The NRA’s uniquely close relationship with its grassroots and thus its political power rests on these two pillars.
The ACLU’s legal director wrote an opinion piece in the WSJ a week or so back (soft paywall):
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-nra-has-a-right-to-exist-11598457143
[Dissolution] has historically been reserved for organizations that are essentially false fronts for personal gain.
[…]
Dissolution is proper only where a corporation is so subsumed by waste, misuse or fraud that it no longer fulfills a charitable purpose. There is simply no precedent for such extreme action against an organization like the NRA, which, whether you like it or not, has been serving charitable purposes very effectively (indeed, many of its opponents would say, too effectively) for a century and a half.
I don’t know if that’s necessarily compelling but at least he didn’t make up anything to support it AFAICT.
If the NY AG really wanted to make some conservative heads explode, she could turn their assets over to Redneck Revolt
Politically motivated prosecution is not always a bad thing. We’ll be seeing a great deal of it against Trump after he leaves office, and that’s a GOOD thing.
Does the NRA have that much in assets? I seem to recall when the beef between Ollie North and Wayne LaPierre was at its most heated and they were caught in the Russian influence scandal that actual assets were scant and that the NRA was almost insolvent. I’m not sure how true this was at the time or just an attempt to boost recruitment, but it sounded like their political action arm had very little to work with.
As I understand it, the amount the NRA gives in election campaign contributions is trivial compared to what corporations and business groups give. What makes the NRA feared in Washington is, rather, its power to mobilize single-issue voters – the kind who will vote against a gun-control candidate even if they agree with him about everything else.
A couple tens of millions IIRC, compared to the hundreds of million in revenue and outlays. They’re not sitting on a huge endowment or anything.
As was mentioned, what probably is the biggest asset is the intellectual property of the NRA. Some lucky group is going to be able to say that they are the parent organization of it when this is all said and done.
But if they did they could post to that recent thread about accidentally sitting on something.
Interesting development:
Paywalled, but here’s the first few paragraphs:
My initial thought is that one of the best defences to the attempt by the NY AG to dissolve them is to show that they are in fact exercising good stewardship of their funds. Maybe this is an attempt to show that they’re taking the allegations seriously, so shouldn’t be dissovled? but then the organization appears to be standing by LaPieree, and going after Ollie North, who sounds like he was something of a whistleblower.
They wont be dissolved.
I’m sceptical of that myself, it’s such a drastic remedy. It seems to be reserved for non-profits that are completely out of control. Show a modicum of good governance, and you should be able to defeat the challenge: “We recognise mistakes were made, and we’re taking steps, but it will take a while, and we ask for patience from our donors and members, etc., etc., etc.”
I just wonder if this IRS filing may be a tactic along those lines.
I saw that article in the Washington Post and thought of this topic. I agree that it’s unlikely to end in the dissolution of the NRA but it shows that there was something valid in the actions of the NYS AG.
Oh, certainly. There is a lot of smoke, and bad practices, but the NRA wont be dissolved.