Comments on NRAinDanger were not entirely flattering to Ms. Hammer, reminding readers she was former Executive Vice President Wayne “LaPierre’s most staunch…defender.” However, at least a couple of respondents noted how Hammer “was the tail that wagged the dog for the 2nd Amendment in Florida. And Florida became the tail that wagged the USA to where we now have 29 Constitutional Carry states. What happened in Florida got us to Heller, to McDonald, and to Bruen.”
Later on in the article, this is noted by Hammer.
Hammer explained her role on the Executive Council and said she continues to correspond with board members.
“I can communicate with them,” she said. “I will continue to do that.”
Unfortunately, as I found out yesterday from multiple sources, regardless of the new procedures, nepotism and the disrespect for the members’ money lives on at the NRA. That is because a mere 21 days after Wayne LaPierre’s resignation from the NRA became effective, his niece Colleen Sterner was promoted to be Director of Events for Advancement. She will continue to live and work from her home in Nebraska. According to my sources, insiders are saying her salary is estimated to be in the $300,000 range.
300K for work at home. It’s a nice gig if you can get it.
I’m frankly not sure that I disagree with nepotism as a practice. It seems to me okay to hire family members. There are benefits to the practice, such as family loyalty transferring to company loyalty.
The problem to me is (a) any association with Wayne or his family at all, (b) favoritism in performance evaluations or pay scale, and (c) over-payment for work. 300K is of course too much for the job this lady has.
And no, I wouldn’t give one penny to the NRA until the entire board has been replaced, along with virtually every employee of the organization.
The corruption goes too deep to trust the NRA with any money at all.
“I admired Wayne LaPierre 20-30 years ago,” a comment left on The Captain’s Journal, a blog I frequent admitted. “Yes, he screwed up and started living high off the hog on the members’ dime… But there were some great victories… during his tenure, particularly the proliferation of shall-issue CCW and constitutional carry…That was all grassroots NRA lobbying.”
“Yes, they were wrong for supporting NICS and some other things, but I think it is unfair to tag Wayne’s tenure with some of the Fudd [stuff] the NRA supported in the past, like the NFA,” the poster continued. “The NRA once had the loyalty of a LOT of Democratic members and Democratic politicians… The NRA now has ZERO influence in places like New York, California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts… Wayne deserves to be held accountable… by the Board of Directors and the members, not by Letitia James or any… so-called court of ‘law.’”
Such sentiment is not unique among gun owners. Unfortunately, it’s also not correct.
END OF AN ERA: Wayne LaPierre announces resignation as NRA chief. Lots of people dislike him, and not without reason, but his era at NRA was also marked by the biggest victories of its history. The challenge for his successors will be to revitalize the organization, which is currently being upstaged by other oufits like the GOA or the SAF.
Victories. Let me see. Would that be support for the NFA, or support for the Hughes Amendment, or support for the GCA, or support for the bump stock ban, or support for red flag laws? Or support for any of the other gun control measures they liked? Or horrible pol grading scheme that utterly failed?
Wayne is gone. We, bye. Maybe your hundreds of thousands of dollars in suits and your little blonde you liked so much will keep you happy.
The NRA will have to do much, much, much better in the future if they expect to regain any resemblance of the authority they had before.
And for the record, ignore the SAF. They embraced smart gun technology.
If the NRA goes for anyone who doesn’t look like the folks we see at the GOA or FPC, then ignore them in the future just like you ignore them now.
UPDATE: In the comments at Instapundit, John Richardson gives wisdom.
“Even with his resignation, he still isn’t taking any responsibility for driving the NRA almost into the ground. He resigned for “health reasons” and not for the good of the organization. I have spoken with ex-NRA employees this afternoon as well as current and former directors. Virtually all think a house-cleaning is needed and I would agree.
Many on the board are hacks that owe their allegiance to Wayne and now are rudderless without him. They need to go. Even worse, Andrew Arulanandam, the PR flack who will be the interim CEO and EVP is not only Wayne’s handpicked successor, is an “acolyte” of Bill Brewer which assures the flow of money to his firm.”
Via email with David Codrea, he believes that there may be a quid pro quo. Wayne would resign if the NRA pays his legal defense. Maybe so. In this case any monies going to the NRA would go for Wayne’s legal expenses.
And until someone absolutely cleans house and does a full blown financial and ethical audit of the NRC organization, they can’t be trusted.
But little do they know we do too in a different way. The quicker the NRA can move out of the way, the better off we’ll be with GOA, FPC and others leading the charge. The NRA scoring no longer means anything for pols, and probably never did. The NRA has negotiated rights away since they’ve been in existence.
No one who knows anything at GOA or FPC believes they will ever compromise on anything. If you think so, read their web sites, and read the FPC Twitter feed (which reads like a declaration of war).
I also listened to an interview with the head of the NAGR recently and he sounded essentially the same as the GOA and FPC.
There isn’t any gun legislation that couldn’t be made worse by the presence of the NRA.
Can the folks in NY working to destroy the NRA please work a little faster? Can someone tell the NRA to mind their own business, which in the best case would be stop pretending to be pro-2A, kicking Wayne to the curb, and go to work to undo all of the infringements they’ve previously engineered against us?
Quick note to the NRA: Please stay out of this and all such matters. Pring your magazines and leave the hard work to the real men.
North Carolina lawmakers pulled back Wednesday from a bill that would let people carry concealed guns without a permit.
The measure faces an uphill battle now, with the top Senate Republican saying Wednesday that he doesn’t think it’s time to take up the issue. In the House of Representatives, lawmakers punted on a scheduled vote, indicating the bill didn’t have enough support to pass the chamber.
House Bill 189 would let any legal gun owner conceal that gun. Right now gun owners need a concealed carry permit to do that, which is typically issued by their local sheriff. That process requires a background check, proficiency test and a test on the rules for self defense and where guns are allowed.
Those tests, and the permits themselves, would be optional under the bill.
The bill moved through a pair of committees Tuesday and seemed primed to pass the House. But enough Republican lawmakers had misgivings to at least delay the measure, and leadership dropped it from Wednesday’s House floor calendar. Tomorrow brings a legislative deadline that there are ways around but which generally requires bills to pass at least one chamber to stay alive.
Also Wednesday, Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger indicated the bill would not move through his chamber this session. Berger, R-Rockingham, said Senate Republicans hadn’t discussed the bill, but that the General Assembly already passed a substantial gun bill this year, ending the state’s pistol permit system.
That system required people to get a permit from their sheriff to purchase a handgun, and Republicans lawmakers scrapped (editorial comment – passed?) it over Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto.
This is the good part – listen to his excuse.
“We’ve done away with the pistol purchase permit, which was the No. 1 goal of many of the gun rights groups for a long period of time,” Berger said Wednesday. “I just don’t know if there’s a need for us to delve into additional issues dealing with guns and people’s 2nd Amendment rights.”
“People have a right to protect themselves utilizing weapons, and law abiding citizens can be trusted to handle those rights responsibly,” Berger said. “I just don’t know that the timing is right for us, at this time, to move forward with additional gun legislation.”
We’ve let rights dribble out to the people this year, so what’s the problem with ignoring the rest of it?
The N.C. Sheriffs Association opposed the bill which I’m certain didn’t help. But here is the rest of the story you weren’t told above.
Isn’t that sweet. “The NRA will never apologize for refusing to compromise on an issue as critical as constitutional carry.”
Okay, how about the NFA, the GCA, the Hughes Amendment, the Bump Stock Ban, Red Flag Laws, the initial AWB, and I could go on. Do you apologize for those abominations?
Honestly, I see the virtue of waiting to get this right, but I would have preferred that we go ahead and get some of this done now and correct it later after lawmakers saw that blood doesn’t really run in the streets.
But the most telling thing here are the two responses, first Berger’s, and then the NRA’s. And Paul is right that the NRA will then swoop in to take credit for it all if it does finally pass after having ignored it the whole time.
It’s a well-deserved and fitting end. The board could never disconnect themselves from being Wayne LaPierre sycophants.
Moreover, the NRA always behaved as if its members should act like dogs eating crumbs that fall from the master’s table. They supported the NFA, the GCA, the Hughes Amendment, the AWB, the bump stock ban, red flag laws, and just about everything that infringes on the rights of free men.
9 months, 2 weeks ago
