For the last handful of years, the NRA has been a troubled organization. Part of that stemmed from a legal fight for its very existence. Another part stemmed from Wayne LaPierre pulling so much crap that New York Attorney General Letitia James could use to try and kill the organization.
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Now, that’s over. Thankfully.
That means the NRA can get back to the business of protecting our right to keep and bear arms. However, there was still some baggage that needed to be dealt with, namely their involvement with a controversial law firm.
However, now even that is behind them.
The partnership between the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the architect of its legal strategy for the last half-decade is now ending.
Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors announced late last month it will no longer represent the NRA going forward. The firm and its namesake, William Brewer, have been instrumental in direction-defining decisions the gun-rights group has made since its corruption scandal broke into public sight in 2018. Those decisions resulted in the NRA splitting from its top contractor, filing for bankruptcy, wiping out its top leadership–including Wayne LaPierre, and being found liable by a New York jury for failing to protect whistle-blowers during a years-long civil trial.
However, as Brewer noted, they also secured a unanimous victory at the Supreme Court and prevented the group’s total dissolution or even the appointment of a government overseer.
“With resolve befitting its mission, the NRA stood and fought,” the firm said in a statement on its website. “Six years later, the NRA still stands – and so do the freedoms for which it has long fought. The Firm is proud it represented the NRA in its blockbuster 9-0 Supreme Court victory, its defeat of the NYAG’s ‘corporate death penalty’ and compliance-monitor claims, its separation from corrupt vendors, and dozens of other matters.”
“The greatest reward of this work arrives now: with major litigation threats defeated, the Firm’s work is nearly done,” it added.
Not everyone inside the group agrees, though. While NRA President Bob Barr, former President Charles Cotton, and other longtime board members have remained staunch Brewer supporters through the firm’s tenure, a growing number of board members have questioned Brewer’s legal strategy–with many effectively voting against the firm’s representation in the group’s last meeting. Jeff Knox, an NRA board member and reform leader, said Brewer’s statement showed the firm “would rather ride off into the sunset than be tossed out into the street,” while Rocky Marshall, another reformer board member, labeled it “comical.”
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In total, the NRA paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 million to the Brewer firm.
Sure, they got the win, but at what cost?
Knox told The Reload, “Almost all of this could have — and should have — been avoided had the Board been proactive back in 2019 and subsequently. Instead, after almost 6 years of litigation, suits, and counter suits, and almost $200 million spent, the NRA was left struggling on all fronts and the Brewer firm’s record is abysmal.”
Now, some may argue that Brewer got the Supreme Court win–a 9-0 win for a very unpopular organization with a significant number of justices–but the truth of the matter is that I honestly believe the NRA could have won that case with almost any law firm. James launched a blatantly politically motivated attack on an organization that opposed her preferred policies. She was obvious about it, bragging about it, and there wasn’t really any other way it could have got before the Court.
It didn’t need to cost $200 million to make that happen.
Let’s also keep in mind that all that money–roughly $33 million per year–was money that didn’t go to supporting candidates or lobbying lawmakers in defense of our right to keep and bear arms.
A lot of people have issues with the NRA, especially in light of the stuff Wayne LaPierre pulled, but it’s still the proverbial 800-pound gorilla of the gun rights world, and it was spending all its money and directing all of its focus on what some board members say could have been avoided entirely. That period overlaps the Biden administration, the most anti-gun presidential administration of most of our lifetimes.
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Now, at least, the NRA can hopefully move forward and focus on the important work of defending our gun rights and educating the public about firearm safety.
