LOVELAND, Colo. — (AmmoLand.com) — I had a chat with Taylor Rhodes, the communications director, from the National Association for Gun Rights. This interview was part of a piece I did for “Concealed Carry Magazine.”
Rhodes and I discussed the Association as well as its sister organization, the National Foundation for Gun Rights. NAGR is a 501(c)(4) lobby and advocacy organization and the Foundation is a 501(c)(3) litigation group.
Our conversation was in mid-2025, so some of the material is dated. However, if you want to watch it in full, you can check it out HERE or in the embed above. There’s plenty to take in and learn about NAGR.
National Association for Gun Rights and National Foundation for Gun Rights
National Association for Gun Rights is a 501(c)(4) lobby group and was founded in 2000 by Dudley Brown. NAGR was formed as a national group that came from Brown’s Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, a state-level Colorado organization. The National Foundation for Gun Rights is one of several sister organizations and is a 501(c)(3) used for litigation.
“The National Association was founded in direct response to there not really being a group that was taking a hard, no compromise stance in state legislatures, primarily on the constitutional carry issue,” Rhodes said. “We are proud now to have 29 constitutional carry states around the country, most of which NAGR played a very large role in if, if it wasn’t the reason that it is law today and most of those states.”
Rhodes said the majority of the funds NAGR receives goes directly into lobbying. The organization is working in both D.C. as well as on the state level. “We have a D.C. office, well, it’s actually in Alexandria, where we lobby on Capitol Hill,” he explained.
The Foundation was formed sometime over the last decade. But, Rhodes said they didn’t really blossom into what they are today until 2022. The foundation “didn’t grow to what it is today until after the Bruen decision a few years ago,” Rhodes noted.
Lawsuits
There are a number of lawsuits that the Foundation has been involved in lately. Rhodes said that the call to bring the fight to the judicial branch came from their membership.
“Ultimately we are only as powerful as our members, right? And our members were almost demanding that we start filing lawsuits,” Rhodes said. “That’s what we did. And essentially just worked up the Foundation. We now have Hannah Hill that’s doing a fantastic job of running that Foundation and really keeping us on track in our legal work.”
Some of the legal battles the Foundation has gotten involved in pertain to so-called “assault weapons” bans, magazine bans, waiting periods, and 18-to-20-year-old bans.
“We’ve been involved with cases such as Lawrence DeMonico, Rare Breed trigger case,” Rhodes said. “We have really taken on a whole nother level of activism through the courts and trying to take back what the left has stolen from us.”
The White House
All the top five national Second Amendment advocacy groups and/or their sister organizations have been in communications with the Trump Administration. Whether groups are interacting directly with White House contacts, the Department of Justice, and/or someone else in the administration, they’ve all indicated that there’s open lines of communications.
NAGR has communicated with the current administration. They actually have a special and direct link to it — as well as the DOJ.
“I can’t say all that much about it, but I will say we have been in contact with the White House,” Rhodes teased. “Actually, our former chairman, Dave Warrington, is now the chief White House counsel, which is huge.
“Also, Harmeet Dhillon, who ran the law firm that we were running many of our lawsuits through — the Rare Breed Trigger one being, being the flagship — is actually assistant attorney general now. We do have pathways into the White House and we’re hoping that this presidential term turns out to be a good one.”
The Plan for 2026
“We have a couple of things that are on the top of our agenda,” Rhodes said. “Actually, when the presidency changed from Democrat to Republican, we launched our program for freedom, which we uniquely coined Make America Armed Again. This is a multi-point plan to take back the rights that the Obama Administration and even past Republican administrations have pushed on us.”
Some of the initiatives that NAGR and the Foundation are pushing for include:
- H.R.645 – National Constitutional Carry Act
- H.R.850 – SHUSH Act
- H.R.2395 – SHORT Act
- Abolishing the ATF — or at least halving their budget
- Continuing to overturn any Biden Era executive orders
As for any litigation that the Foundation might be pursuing in the future, Rhodes was mum. “As of right now, I’m not at liberty to say,” he said. “We’re always speaking to our attorneys about what makes sense. We always calculate the risk of losing.”
And More…
Rhodes and I talked further about other initiatives the organizations are involved. We also discussed groups they’ve been working with.
“We’re always open to working with groups as long as we are not going to compromise on behalf of our members,” Rhodes explained. “And that’s something that we always make sure of before we get in bed with anyone.”
The National Association for Gun Rights — along with the other national groups — is working at the tip of the spear to safeguard the Second Amendment. Learn more about what they’re up to by tuning into our interview in full here.
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About John Petrolino
John Petrolino is a US Merchant Marine Officer, writer, author of Decoding Firearms: An Easy to Read Guide on General Gun Safety & Use and NRA certified pistol, rifle, and shotgun instructor living under and working to change New Jersey’s draconian and unconstitutional gun laws. You can find him on the web at www.johnpetrolino.com on twitter at @johnpetrolino, facebook at @thepenpatriot and on instagram @jpetrolinoiii .
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