The NRA: Should it be disbanded?
The National Rifle Association is facing “its worst nightmare: accountability,” said Shannon Watts in USA Today. New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit last week seeking to dissolve the nonprofit gun group, calling it “a breeding ground for greed, abuse, and brazen illegality.” An 18-month probe revealed how the NRA’s leaders, especially CEO Wayne LaPierre, turned the 150-year-old organization into “a personal piggy bank” while spending less than 10 percent of funds on gun safety and training. Instead, the New York state–chartered organization allegedly used charitable gifts for private jets, Italian suits, African safaris, lavish European vacations, luxury black-car services, and $18,000 in family wedding expenses. All told, corrupt executives allegedly squandered $64 million over three years. “Perhaps more responsible than any other group or individual for America’s deadly gun-violence epidemic,” the NRA “had this reckoning coming.”
LaPierre’s “rock star–style” spending “looks fishy,” said Kevin Williamson in NationalReview .com, but the attempt to break up the NRA itself is a “political jihad.” James once called the NRA a “terrorist organization,” and this lawsuit is “a clear abuse of prosecutorial power.” For all of the
NRA’s questionable spending, said Jonathan Turley in TheHill.com, “it is, by any measure, one of the most successful advocacy groups in our history,” with more than 5 million members and a remarkable record of defeating gun-control legislation and candidates from either party it deems unfriendly to gun rights. James may now be a liberal “hero,” but she hunted the NRA only because it serves its members so effectively.
As much as I “loathe” the NRA, said Ruth Marcus in The Washington Post, dissolving it would be a mistake, even if allegations of LaPierre’s “jaw-dropping greed” are true. “The NRA has a First Amendment right to its misguided understanding of the Second,” and James surely would not attempt to disband the ACLU or Planned Parenthood over similar financial mismanagement. Liberals give the NRA too much credit, anyway, said Bill Scher in Politico.com. Even if the group is weakened by litigation, “about 43 percent of Americans will still live in gun-owning households.” With or without the NRA, a “fervent gun-rights culture” will persist. If Democrats want more stringent gun control, they’ll have to explicitly run on that issue, persuade a critical mass of voters, and get “a mandate for action.”