NRA Sues Ackerman-McQueen, Ackerman-McQueen Tries to Oust LaPierre at Meeting

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by Tony Z

Is there, or will there, be a Phoenix, the rise out of the ashes of what the NRA once was?

It depends on whether or not the board of directors is willing to do their duty to the organization. Wayne LaPierre has to go, there needs to be a housecleaning and restructuring, and the by-laws need to be revised (or, perhaps, UNrevised) to return control of the organization to the members rather than locking the members out of control over their own organization.

If the board won't clean house, then I believe outside forces will clean house for (and with) them.

[5whiskey]

Hot off the press boys...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/10/polit...aid/index.html

So WLP isn't the only high ranking NRA Officer that gets some fringe benefits. Why is Ted Nugent being paid to appear at a convention for an organization that he is a director of? Or Dave Butz getting a sweetheart 400k deal for "outreach and training?"

I'm afraid there's much more to come. Many of the board members, former board members, et al play it like it's nothing more than the media trying to destroy the NRA. Well, there's a degree of truth to that, but if there are issues to report on you can't just wave your hands and say "the media is out to get us." And it's looking an awful lot like there are some serious issues to report on...

I have defended the NRA quite a bit from it's detractors. News like this will make it very difficult for me to do so in the future.

[littlebikerider]

In May I got an email from NRA that wanted to "clear the air", I'm sure anyone here who is an NRA member got it. In paragraph 6, it said their financial house is in order.

I got a letter from NRA that afternoon pleading for money because "Cuomo is attacking the banks and NRA may have to go out of business".

I don't respond to letters and emails that are written in hyperbole. And the fact that these two things arrived in the same day show me that someone is not being honest.

I want NRA to survive, but they have to clean out their shorts and act like big people if they want to regain their past credibility.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Some of the payoffs aren't terrible. Bart Skelton gets paid for articles he actually wrote. What's wrong with that? Is it a conflict of interest - if so, that's minor.

Brownell quit the Board, IIRC.

[5whiskey]

Some of the payoffs aren't terrible. Bart Skelton gets paid for articles he actually wrote. What's wrong with that? Is it a conflict of interest - if so, that's minor.

While I think it may be a conflict of interest, Bart Skelton's example is relatively minor and not of a major concern to me personally. I think Butz getting nearly half a mil for an organization that he is an un-paid board member of is... well interesting at any rate. I'm not even insisting this is all definitely dirty. I do know that if I were Dave Butz, and I was on the up and up, I would quickly release line item lists of the service I provided for that 400k to clear the air quickly. If he doesn't, it doesn't even mean he is hiding something... but it's very easy to perceive that he is. Perception is often reality.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer

Some of the payoffs aren't terrible. Bart Skelton gets paid for articles he actually wrote. What's wrong with that? Is it a conflict of interest - if so, that's minor.

It gets muddy.

I suspect many of the members don't know it (I wasn't aware of it, until this flap erupted), but the NRA does not actually publish any of the NRA magazines. Ackerman-McQueen does (or did). So if Bart Skelton received payment for writing articles for the NRA magazines, he would have been paid by Ackerman-McQueen, not by the NRA. Of course the money ultimately came from the members' pockets, but it's not as clear-cut as the NRA hiring board members directly.

That said, there are other gun writers whom Ackerman-McQueen could have hired. For Bart Skelton to sit on the board and accept a commission to write for the NRA magazines shows a decided lack of sensitivity to the fundamental meaning of "conflict of interest." Many aspects of this mess are downright stygian. Others, such as (perhaps) Skelton's articles and payments, just help to prove the validity of the old saying that "The appearance of a conflict of interest is often more damaging than the fact."

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Chris Cox gets the axe!

https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/br...ead-chris-cox/

[Glenn E. Meyer]

It has been argued by the NRA-ILA that while the NRA is in trouble, they still do good work and should be supported. This doesn't bode well for that line of argument.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

According to the article, Cox was lined up on the AM side of the coup.

[5whiskey]

This is quickly becoming a dumpster fire... that was wheeled onto the train tracks... looks like a dumpster fire train wreck is coming.

[Tony Z]

As mentioned previously, I have blocked all NRA and related emails, and toss without opening, all of their snail mail propaganda. Where we once had truth, we now question. Perhaps the membership should form their own class action to clawback forward paid dues? Would this wake the NRA/ILA leadership up?

[Bottom Gun]

It concerns me that time sent in-fighting could be spent protecting our second amendment rights.
I'm suspending further contributions including NRA roundups until I see some change and improvement in the organization.
I've notified them of my intent. Perhaps that will get someone's attention.

[Tom Servo]

Greg Kinman, better known as Hickok45 for his YouTube videos, announced he's severing ties with the NRA:

We have high hopes that the NRA will come out of all this strong, lean, and more effective; however, we've come to the tough decision that we can no longer take support from the NRA or continue to use our brand to ask people to join. Because we have a number of good videos yet to post where you'll see the NRA plug, we'll avoid confusion for viewers by leaving the link in the description, and the NRA will leave up the page on their end until we've posted the last of these videos. We'll get no support for any additional memberships, however.

Jeff Knox has also started an organization to force change at the leadership level, though I'm not sure how successful he'll be.

[Mainah]

Perhaps the membership should form their own class action to clawback forward paid dues? Would this wake the NRA/ILA leadership up?

Oh yeah it would. But is giving lawyers even more money for something like this going to be the most productive move? Maybe start by having every single piece of mail they send returned back to Wayne's attention.

[Mainah]

Greg Kinman, better known as Hickok45 for his YouTube videos, announced he's severing ties with the NRA...

The NRA could learn a great deal about effective communication from that video. Outstanding job.

And it was nice to learn the connection between Greg and Hickock45. His 642 review helped my make that choice.

[USNRet93]

Is there, or will there, be a Phoenix, the rise out of the ashes of what the NRA once was?

Maybe Chris Cox and Ollie and guys like Hickok45 will start their own 'NRA'..bet there's more than a little support out there for a new one after reading of wayne's and the present nra's leadership shenanigans..

[Tony Z]

If a new group arises, it wil be up to the rest of us to renounce our NRA memberships, at least temorarily and provide monetary support to the new group. I'm in.

[ammo.crafter]

Does anyone know the salaries received by the top officials of NRA?

Is there a vehicle by which the general membership can demand same?

Do these officials have another source of income other than their NRA salaries?

Do any have a "relationship" to any service providers used by NRA?

Our future as gun owners are in jeopardy if these issues are not brought out in the open.

I wonder which side these individuals are on. I was under the impression they represented the membership and acted in good faith.

These issues must be cleared up and brought into the open for the good of the members and NRA going forward.

PS Where can we obtain a copy of the by-laws?

[JERRYS.]

the NRA leadership is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars each per year to negotiate a slow surrender of our gun rights.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by ammo.crafter

Does anyone know the salaries received by the top officials of NRA?

I can't vouch for the authenticity of the information, but I found this:

https://www.celebritynetworth.com/ar...a-leader-make/

Salary: Wayne LaPierre's NRA salary starts at $985,000 per year. In most years he also typically earns a bonus of roughly $150,000. Outside of base salary and bonuses, Wayne participates in the NRA's employee retirement plan. In 2015 he became old enough to receive a $3.7 million distribution from his retirement account. So in that one year, he earned a bit over $5 million, but in most years his salary is closer to $1 million.

Interestingly, Wayne is NOT the highest paid person at the NRA. That honor goes to executive director of general operations, Kayne B. Robinson who earns a little more than $1 million in base salary every year.

https://www.earnthenecklace.com/wayn...rre-net-worth/

In 2010, the NRA paid LaPierre more than $900,000 as salary. It was estimated that he received a hefty compensation of $985,885 in 2014 from the NRA’s total contributions, which was estimated at a whopping $103.0 million.
As part of similar contributions, LaPierre went home $3.7 million richer in 2015, after receiving his “employee funded deferred compensation plan” cut.

http://money.com/money/5178193/wayne...-money-salary/

According to a 1995 Los Angeles Times story, the NRA was paying LaPierre $190,000 per year in the mid-1990s. More recently, the NRA has paid LaPierre an annual salary of roughly $1 million. But in some years, LaPierre has earned far more. In 2015, for example, LaPierre took home $5.1 million, the Washington Post reported. According to tax records, he collected $1,090,515 in base compensation that year, plus a $150,000 bonus, plus a special employee retirement plan payment of nearly $4 million.

So ... around a million bucks a year in base pay for LaPierre, plus other compensation and reimbursements.

[thallub]

By golly i finally nailed it: Scroll down to page 33, line 83 and learn that La Pierre hauled in $1,366,688 in 2017. Chris Cox made $1,099,762 in 2017.

https://www.thetrace.org/2018/11/nra...ing-allowance/

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by thallub

By golly i finally nailed it: Scroll down to page 33, line 83 and learn that La Pierre hauled in $1,366,688 in 2017. Chris Cox made $1,099,762 in 2017.

https://www.thetrace.org/2018/11/nra...ing-allowance/

The source isn't exactly an NRA supporter, but their research appears to be solid (unless they fabricated the names of the people they're quoting -- which is, of course, possible).

Be sure to read the other articles the cited page leads to. It really appears to me that the NRA needs to be disassembled, all the senior people fired and the board of directors replaced, and the whole thing rebuilt from the ground up. And I don't see that happening. I don't even know how it could be made to happen.

I read a different article that said in the "mid-199s" LaPierre's salary was $190,000. If you start at 1995 and forward that to 2019 using rates of inflation, if the average rate of inflation over that period was 2 percent the salary today should be $305,603. If you use 2.5 percent, it comes out to $313,243.

Even if you use 5 percent (which is far higher than the actual inflation over that period), it still only gets to $612,769. So if LaPierre was being paid a fair salary in the mid-1990s, after inflation his salary has been increased by a factor of two or three orders of magnitude. That's just crazy.

[Bottom Gun]

Whenever I see the staff of a non profit organization being paid a seven figure salary it makes me wonder . . . . . . .

[Aguila Blanca]

Using an on-line inflation calculator, a salary of $190,000 in 1995 equated to $317,033,54 in 2018. So between salary and other compensation, it appears that LaPierre's total compensation package is worth about four times as much now as it was when he was made Executive VP. I'd say that's extremely unusual for a non-profit, member organization.

[thallub]

The source isn't exactly an NRA supporter, but their research appears to be solid (unless they fabricated the names of the people they're quoting -- which is, of course, possible).

Yep, that's why i checked it against another source:


https://www.documentcloud.org/docume...-2017-990.html