A recording of the NRA’s January 2020 board meeting is creating more public relations trouble for the National Rifle Association. In the audio, Wayne LaPierre states to the board that the recent legal battles have cost the organization more than $100 million dollars.
LaPierre blamed the ongoing investigations by the New York and Washington, D.C., attorneys general. He didn’t say a word about his own role in why gun owners have lost so much faith in the NRA. That lost trust has presumably led to significantly lower donations.
He did detail that the NRA would have to make $80 million dollars in cuts to stay afloat.
This board meeting took place in January. On March 14th, the organization announced they were cancelling their annual convention due to the Corona Virus.
The NRA later announced on March 23rd that they were firing more than 60 employees and cutting salaries 20 percent across the board. Even LaPierre will take a cut, though no specific dollar amount was given.
A Closet Full Of Expensive Dirty Laundry
All this since April of 2019, when all the dirty laundry started to hit the fan. Word of LaPierre’s lavish spending was hard to stifle. From using the company jet to transport his wife’s relatives to $40,000 shopping trips at a single store in Beverly Hills, it wasn’t good PR. LaPierre had even tried to get the NRA to buy him a $6 million dollar house near Dallas.
Then the legal battles. Their former inside council sued them and the lawyer fees were costing $90,000 a day at one point. It was an incestuous mess, with donor dollars flying out the window.
Fiddling While Rome Burns
Wayne LaPierre likes to blame the anti-gun government and media for the collapse of the NRA, but they have always faced that kind of opposition. That’s nothing new.
Meanwhile, while American gun owners are staring down the teeth of HR. 5717, the granddaddy of all gun control bills, LaPierre’s NRA has emptied $100 million dollars from their war chest just to pay legal fees.
These kinds of numbers are just staggering to think about! When the average donation to most non-profit organizations is around $128 a year, this number represents the blood, sweat, and tears of hundreds of thousands of Americans over multiple years!
When we need them to mount the fight of our lives, the cupboard is bare — and it’s not for lack of donations by gun-loving patriots all across the country!
Can LaPierre right the ship? Many gun owners are saying he needs to be tossed overboard if there is to be any hope of surviving this storm. Time will tell but it doesn’t look good. If he cared for the Second Amendment, he’d step away from the NRA before he makes the mess even worse.