Could This Be The End Of The NRA?

8/7/20 by Diane Rehm

Web player: https://podcastaddict.com/episode/110784225
Episode: https://downloads.wamu.org/mp3/dr/20/08/r1200807.mp3

In a lawsuit filed this week, New York Attorney General Letitia James said a months long investigation into the National Rifle Association found extensive “fraud and abuse” and she’s calling for the powerful gun rights organization to be dissolved. Diane talks with Adam Winkler, professor of law at UCLA, about the lawsuit and what comes next.

Institutionally that may be correct, some of the abuses of the NRA executives are pretty aggregious by any accounting. Besides forcing paybacks and resignations of the executives, the NRA 501c3 could be dissolved under state law ⚖ but that doesn’t mean that gun rights advocacy would disappear – the assets of the NRA would be transferred to other gun rights advocacy groups that have a record of being more responsible to their donors.

Some of those groups are far more stronger advocates of the second amendment and are smaller and less wasteful. And people still care about their rights – if the NRA disappears other group like the National Association for Gun Rights or Shooting Sports Alliance may take up their mantle.

Honestly, the pervasive corruption of the NRA as an institution suggests maybe its time for its competitors to take up the mantle and become a more trustworthy source of advocacy and training for gun rights. Just because an institution has been all powerful for generations doesn’t mean it’s above the law or not subject to corruption. Times change and sometimes new leadership is needed.