NRA Sues Ackerman-McQueen, Ackerman-McQueen Tries to Oust LaPierre at Meeting

I paid my dues to the NRA yet they continue to ask me for more money.
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There's actually a valid reason for that. Your dues go to support the NRA Foundation, which is the organization responsible for gun safety, training programs, and range support. Basically, the "shooting culture" we know.

The actual lobbying is done by a separate arm, known as the NRA-ILA. Because of their tax status, the Foundation can't do advocacy, so your membership dues can't be used for that. The ILA relies on donations, which is what all the junk mail is about.
 
Bartholomew Roberts said:
Latest news on the Ackerman-McQueen/LaPierre fight. It looks like hiring McQueen’s son-in-law to sue AM has cost the NRA $19 million in a single year
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Shucks, I'll do it for half that ...
 
I looked at the table summary of billing by attorney Brewer and was astounded by the more than $19 million billed in 12 months. First, consider the average hourly rate in New York City is $344 per hour per a major legal malpractice carrier. https://www.lawyersmutualnc.com/blog/top-10-lawyer-hourly-rates-by-city. Let's increase that rate to $600 per hour for top notch legal talent.

If you divide 19-million by 600, you get 31,666; that means you would have to bill 31,666 hours at $600 per hour in order to bill $19-million a year. That 31,666 divided by 365 days a year equals just of 86 hours a day billed at $600 each hour.

Now, I know this doesn't take costs such as deposition fees, expert witness fees, travel costs, etc. into consideration. I also know that law firms engaged in complex litigation will usually need more than one lawyer working on the case. That $19-million figure is still a staggering amount.
 
I was going to use $500, which would bring it to 38,000 billable hours. But ... in any law firm, not all the work is done by the lead attorney(s) who bill(s) at $500/hour. I'm not an attorney so I have no idea what percentage would be done by junior attorneys and paralegals, but my guess would be "a bunch." I also don't know what such lower-tier people would be billed at. To keep it simple, I just used $250/hour. Even if we use those arbitrary numbers, it makes it an indeterminate equation -- it could work out to a small number of hours by the big guns and a metric boatload of hours by the minions, or it could be a lot of hours by the big guns and a comparatively few hours by the supporting team.

Let's pick a 2:1 ratio -- that would work out to 19,000 hours by the lead, principal attorney(s), and 38,000 hours by staff averaging $250/hour. So now we're at a total of 57,000 billable hours over the span of one year.

Divide that by 52 weeks and we get 1,096 hours per week. for EVERY week of the year. Nobody, even in the legal profession, works 100 percent billable 100 percent of the time. Another gross assumption -- assume that everyone on the team works 10 hours of overtime a week, so out of 50 hours a week they can bill 40. (Which I think is a real stretch). 1,096 hours divided by 40 means the firm would have had to have 27.4 people working on the NRA matters FULL-TIME.

I don't believe it.
 
This is a link to the North-Childress letter outlining NRA legal expenses paid to the Brewer organization. North and Childress claim that La Pierre has steadfastly refused an outside auditor.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5997969-North-Childress-Letter.html

If this stuff is true the NRA is in dire straits. An article i recently read claims the NRA headquarters building and grounds, valued at 25 million dollars, has been mortgaged to the hilt.
 
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There are problems with the NRA that people with the power to make positive changes are very motivated to pursue. Only part of it is the political left.

For me, I decided to join my state org. I will not join the NRA as long as Lapierre is running it. I have no faith in the idea that I can join and rise up through the ranks and vote him out. Too many people are already there and still can’t. I like Nugent and I can easily respect North, but this whole thing with AM makes me feel like this isn’t about protecting 2A rights as much as creating another advertising beheameth.

Things have changed. Too many people will equate the NRA to Goldman Sachs. For too many people, the NRA is just another scam to avoid in life. It isn’t going to be about lies coming from Pelosi, Clinton, DiFi, Schumer, or anyone else in Washington. People are staring at the phones while driving thinking the only way to stay in touch with friends and family is through Facebook. We live in a world where most people live and die by the app. A huge portion of the population is addicted to drugs, online porn, and overwhelmingly absorbed with self. Who has the time or money to be a part of things like this when there is a six figure student loan to pay for?

Then you have this idea that so much of what the NRA is and does is not done out in the open making many see them as trying to hide things. I saw The videos from this last convention of everyone debating on making the things that the public needs to see dealt with in private. Forums like this and many others really should add special areas dedicated to NRA specific topics. Things that don’t just fall off the screen like this thread will.

You can’t show the world a carbon copy of what tele-evanjalists do and expect everything to be ok. Too many people are blindly following. That makes people easily lied to. When it comes out that people lied, everyone’s jaw drops. This is idiocy that leads to money pits. We constantly slam the left for nonsense like this but are perfectly willing to give hard earned money to the NRA under the expectation of protecting the 2nd. It’s just too hard to see that protection when we see scam artists at the top.
 
The so called "vote" in Indianapolis was not a roll call vote. According to Col. West it was a vote of acclamation.
 
I’m having a very difficult time squaring $19 million in a year to Brewer for two? cases (Suing NY and Ackerman McQueen). That sounds insane to me; but then the NRA paid AM $40 million in a year and Lord only knows what that was for.

Apparently around a half million of the fees paid to AM were for clothing allowances and trips to Lake Como for La Pierre.

I look forward to seeing Mr. Cotton at the next Texas Firearms law CLE if he shows.
 
I've blocked all NRA fundraising emails and tossing all bits of their mail campaign letters. All seem to have LaPierre's face pleading for funds.

They need to return to their roots and a grassroots effort to retake is the only way. I fear the 2A will be facing its biggest challenge ever, over the next few years.
 
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The problem is that two(?) years ago, they revised the by-laws to essentially make it impossible for the members to have any say in how the organization is run.
 
Timothy Knight helped organize resistance to Colorado gun laws. He spent his own money and with others built up a grass roots organization from scratch. He’s been active on the NRA board and spends his own money to attend and take part while receiving nothing. If he is saying he didn’t know, then I don’t believe it was because he was lazy or uninterested.

Sadly, I think the NRA is facing a well-coordinated and funded information operation against it; and its all the more effective because the underlying facts are true.
 
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$200,000 is $4,000 per year for fifty years. I'm quite certain that I have never spent anywhere close to $4,000 on clothes in a year, not even when I was working in an office suit-and-tie environment.
 
Aguila Blanca said:
$200,000 is $4,000 per year for fifty years. I'm quite certain that I have never spent anywhere close to $4,000 on clothes in a year, not even when I was working in an office suit-and-tie environment.
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that's only 8 suits a few pairs of shoes, a few ties, and a few shirts. not every year though.
 
JERRYS. said:
that's only 8 suits a few pairs of shoes, a few ties, and a few shirts. not every year though.
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Understood, but who buys 8 suits, several pairs of shoes, a few ties and a few shirts EVERY single year, for FIFTY years straight?
 
Too many people will equate the NRA to Goldman Sachs.
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I'm thinking more along the lines of Enron and how they were recorded as laughing at the old women freezing because they couldn't keep up with the rate hikes.

I picture the grifters at the NRA as laughing at the naive membership and how the gravy train will never end.

Likely, it won't. Wayne might have to make do with a paltry $1 million/yr, but he and his are set for life. Likely.
 
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