Today’s LinkSwarm is still coming, but this is worth a newsflash.
Longtime National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre announced his resignation Friday, Fox News Digital has learned.
Better late then never, but this is still several years too late.
“With pride in all that we have accomplished, I am announcing my resignation from the NRA,” LaPierre said in the NRA’s press release, which was exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital. “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.”
In recent years, LaPierre’s passion seemed to be for lining his pockets, building a wall of cronies between him and accountability, and dragging the organization down with him rather than stepping aside.
NRA President Charles Cotton said during the board meeting Friday in Irving, Texas, that he accepted LaPierre’s resignation. LaPierre, 74, cited health reasons as motivation behind the departure.
The resignation will take effect Jan. 31. Andrew Arulanandam, the NRA’s executive and head of general operations, will serve as interim CEO and executive vice president of the NRA.
Arulanandam is one of Wayne’s toadies, and the organization won’t be free of LaPierre’s taint until all his cronies are swept from the board and positions of power.
The announcement comes as LaPierre is set to face trial in the corruption case brought by Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James. James – who before being elected the state’s AG, vowed to take on the NRA and slammed the group as a “terrorist organization” – brought forth a lawsuit in 2020 accusing NRA leadership of violating state and federal laws to divert millions of dollars to their own pockets.
The James lawsuit is indeed a political witchhunt, but it was LaPierre’s self-dealing that gave James the opening she needed to go after him.
Someone free of LaPierre’s taint, like former, well-respected NRA-ILA head Chris Cox, should be brought in to clean out Wayne’s Augean stables. Until those urgent reforms are carried out, NRA still won’t get any of my money.
Tags: Andrew Arulanandam, Charles Cotton, Guns, Letitia James, New York, Wayne LaPierre
Scumbag should have been fired decades ago…
The problem is that LaPierre rigged the rules to make it all but impossible for the elected NRA President to fire the non-elected Executive Vice President (him).
Lt. Colonel Allen West would be preferable to Chris Cox for one particular reason.
His military background would be a good fit in expanding the CMP program. There are millions of AR-15 owners. Forming them into localized training elements would provide a muscular means of resisting gun confiscation.
GOA and SAF have proved themselves more than equal to the task of defending the Second Amendment in the courts but the NRA is better equipped to form a bulwark against attacks from the Executive branch.
The NRA is better used to reinforce the success story of GOA/SAF than to compete against them through the half-hearted efforts of NRA-ILA.
I wouldn’t be in favor of West running the NRA because I haven’t noticed much competence in his previous executive stints.
The NRA under Wayne LaPierre conceived, funded, and managed New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, McDonald v. City of Chicago, and District of Columbia v. Heller. These are the three most important advances in gun rights during this century.
FPC, NAGR, SAF, GCA and so on were nowhere to be found.
The NRA under Wayne LaPierre conceived, funded, and managed New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, McDonald v. City of Chicago, and District of Columbia v. Heller. These are the three most important advances in gun rights during this century.
FPC, NAGR, SAF, GOA and so on were nowhere to be found.
Nope. The NRA tried to muscle in on Alan Gura when he argued both Heller and McDonald. Their brief offered an anemic argument that would have brought no substantial relief to plaintiffs.
The NRA has agreed to compromise gun rights often, including their tacit approval of GCA 1968.
Just stop with the ahistorical nonsense.
“Nope. The NRA tried to muscle in on Alan Gura when he argued both Heller and McDonald. Their brief offered an anemic argument that would have brought no substantial relief to plaintiffs.”
Not true. The NRA was first to file, but with an entirely different legal strategy.
The NRA case was Sandra Seegars, et al. v. John D. Ashcroft, Attorney General of the United States, et al.. The NRA case was dismissed by District Court Judge Reggie Walton on January 14, 2004. The NRA case was planned and filed well before the Cato Institute case. Richard E. Gardiner and Stephen P. Halbrook were hired by the NRA to litigate the Seegars case. Halbrook is a widely respected Second Amendment litigator who advised the NRA on challenging the D.C. gun laws.
The original Cato Institute lawsuit (which morphed into Heller) was Shelly Parker v. District of Columbia, et al. It was dismissed by District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan on March 31, 2004.
The NRA and Halbrook were deeply concerned that the Cato Institute would lose in their attempts to overturn the District of Columbia handgun ban, with the distinct possibility that the Second Amendment would be gutted forever. The NRA did not believe that there were enough votes to affirm our understanding of the Second Amendment on SCOTUS.
They were correct in this concern, as the Heller decision was full of vagaries and loopholes inserted by Justice Scalia in order to obtain a majority vote. Justice Scalia saved our bacon, but at the cost of a weak, mostly useless decision. The NRA had read the Supreme Court correctly.
The NRA attempted to have Parker (which became Heller) consolidated with Seegars. Cato resisted mightily and the NRA was left with no choice but roll the dice, all or nothing. The NRA got 46 additional groups to support Heller’s lawsuit and at that point Judge Sullivan got reversed and the case eventually winds up at the Supreme Court.
The District of Columbia v. Heller decision only passed by a 5-4 vote. It only restricted federal government entities from violating the Second Amendment, with a lot of exceptions.
The NRA immediately cast about for a non Federal gun law to challenge and filed McDonald v. City of Chicago. Even that did not produce a ruling of much use to gun owners. The NRA finally got the Supreme Court it wanted and filed New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, which actually declares our rights without equivocation.
Bruen was the sole work of the NRA.
You are also completely wrong about the Gun Control Act of 1968. The NRA had it beaten until the June 5th assassination of Robert Kennedy produced an avalanche of adverse publicity fomented by LBJ. Manny Celler had effectively withdrawn HR 17735 in March 1968. Even when it was revived in June, the NRA succeeded in stopping it in the House Judiciary Committee on June 11th. Then Johnson began twisting arms to the breaking point.
“Until those urgent reforms are carried out, NRA still won’t get any of my money.”
Agreed. The vast majority of donations to the NRA are going right into the pockets of the inept and incompetent Brewer law firm.
Not a penny of my money is going to the NRA until all of this is resolved completely and I’m convinced that the corruption of the executives and the impotence of the BOD in it’s oversight role have been corrected.
I’m not a young man so I’ll likely be dead before all the appeals wend their way through the morass of our court system and true reforms are enacted.