Opinion
Tombstone, Arizona – The National Rifle Association announced yesterday that it has filed suit against the NRA Foundation, claiming that the Foundation has been exploiting the NRA’s trademarks and intellectual property and misleading donors by raising funds under the NRA’s name, while refusing to fund NRA programs.
As a member of the NRA’s Board of Directors, I have long been aware of the problems and discussions of various strategies to try to get the Foundation’s leadership to fulfill their obligations to the NRA, including the possibility of a civil suit, so I was not taken completely by surprise by today’s announcement. I am saddened and frustrated that things have reached this point.
While many people consider the NRA Foundation a subsidiary or subdivision of the NRA, in reality, the Foundation is an independent entity with its own charter, bylaws, and Board of Trustees. While the Foundation was created by the NRA, and has a clause in its Articles of Incorporation naming the funding of NRA education and charitable programs as a core function of the NRA Foundation, it is not under the control or management of the NRA or the NRA Board of Directors.
The NRA Foundation was designed and intended to serve the needs of the NRA and its donors primarily.
It was given leeway to provide grants in support of programs and organizations that advance similar goals and objectives to those of the NRA, but its primary purpose was to fund the educational, charitable, and scientific programs of the National Rifle Association. To ensure that the Foundation always retained that focus, a number of safeguards and checks were put in place, including a requirement that all members of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees be Life Members of the NRA with at least 5 years in that status. The NRA Board of Directors also elected the Foundation Board of Trustees, and a majority of the Trustees were required to be members of the NRA Board of Directors.
All of this worked fine until the leadership of the NRA found itself in financial trouble and began reaching out to the NRA Foundation for assistance in the form of multi-million-dollar loans (that might not have been repaid) and escalating charges for office space and business services provided to the Foundation by the NRA. This, along with other factors, led to the Attorney General of the District of Columbia (where the Foundation is incorporated) filing suit against the Foundation and the NRA.
The suit was eventually settled with an agreement that the Foundation would exercise some greater independence from the NRA, that all grants and payments to the NRA would require a formal vetting process and follow-up, and that the Trustees would be required to attend annual training to remind them of their fiduciary obligations and duty of loyalty to the Foundation.
At the NRA Board meeting in Dallas, immediately after the NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits, the Board elected a handful of additions to the Foundation’s 15-member Board of Trustees.
Like the NRA Board, the Foundation Board runs on 3-year terms, with one-third of the board up for election each year. This was my first board meeting as a newly elected Director, and the balance of power in that meeting was fairly evenly split between the “Old Guard” and those leaning toward reform. With that split, there was a tendency for Directors to gravitate toward familiar names and faces when it came to things like the Executive Committee, the Whittington Center Board, and the NRA Foundation Board of Trustees. The election was further complicated by erroneous beliefs that the consent order included specific requirements regarding how many Trustees had to be non-NRA Board members.
Regardless of all that, this turned out to be the last time the NRA Board would have the opportunity to elect the Foundation Board members.
After Tom King, the current President of the Foundation Board of Trustees (and a die-hard Wayne LaPierre supporter) failed to win reelection to the NRA Board in the 2025 election, he used his influence on the Foundation Board of Trustees to amend the Foundation’s bylaws, taking the election of Trustees away from the NRA Board and giving it to the Foundation Board instead. They also amended the Articles of Incorporation, allowing them to expand the number of Trustees, and quickly loaded the Foundation Board with additional LaPierre loyalists.
Currently – unless they’ve slipped another change in while I was writing – the Foundation Board of Trustees consists of Tom King, Charles Cotton, Bob Barr, Joel Friedman, Scott Bach, Blaine Wade, Barbara Rumpel, Bill Carter, Ronnie Barrett, Eb Wilkinson, Regis Synan, Greer Johnson, Stephen Plaster, Anne Draper, and Jay Wallace. Ten of those were long-time NRA Directors, all of whom voted with the “Old Guard” faction, and almost all of whom have resigned from the NRA Board over the past two or three months. Only Ronnie Barrett and Scott Bach have retained their seats on the NRA Board, and Regis Synan, who ran for the Board last year, but didn’t win election, was appointed to fill one of the vacancies created by the spate of resignations. Greer Johnson was offered one of those vacated seats, but she declined. Jay Wallace is on the ballot for this year’s election. I honestly have no idea where he stands on any of this or other NRA issues.
If you followed the drama of the past 6+ years, many of these names should be familiar to you. Charles Cotton was elevated to the First Vice President chair shortly after the whole scandal blew up in 2019, when Carolyn Meadows was elected President, and the wagons began circling around Wayne LaPierre. Meadows had health problems and was also looking after her husband, whose health was even worse, so she wasn’t a very active President, not even showing up for most meetings, instead leaving most of the presidential duties up to Mr. Cotton and his pal David Coy.
It turned out that these two had feature roles in the LaPierre tragedy, as Cotton and Coy were Chair and Vice Chair, respectively, of the NRA’s Audit Committee for some 20 years, and Coy was Chair of the Finance Committee at the same time, with Cotton as a committee member.
In those capacities, Cotton and Coy were probably the two most culpable Directors in the whole LaPierre scandal, as their duties on the Audit Committee included making sure policies were being followed, auditors were fully informed and given full access, and that whistleblowers were heard and treated fairly.
They failed in all of those missions, allowing LaPierre and his cronies to abuse their positions with impunity. In fact, their culpability was so egregious that the judge in the New York lawsuit chastised then-President Barr for reappointing Cotton and Coy to the Audit Committee in 2024, and went on to include a specific prohibition against anyone who had served on the Audit Committee between 2014 and 2022 ever serving on the Audit Committee again.
While I have been unable to obtain a list of the members of the Foundation’s Audit Committee, I am very confident that Mr. Cotton is among its members, along with Mr. Barr.
As for Mr. Coy, he was also appointed to the Foundation Board, but he subsequently resigned from that position after being hired to serve as the Foundation’s Treasurer. (It’s worth noting that the NRA Treasurer has historically filled the Treasurer position for the Foundation, and the Director of Advancement has historically served as the Executive Director of the Foundation. The Board of Trustees has now hired its own people to fill both of those positions.)
So, here’s the situation:
A group of die-hard LaPierre supporters on the NRA Board of Directors has migrated to the NRA Foundation Board of Trustees and taken control of that body, disconnecting any override protections that the NRA Board used to have. Almost all of those LaPierre enablers and loyalists have now resigned from the NRA Board of Directors, in essence resigning their duty of loyalty to the NRA.
I do not believe there’s any shady financial chicanery going on. I don’t think anyone has their hand in the cookie jar, but neither is there any significant support forthcoming for the NRA and its programs. Many NRA programs, from Eddie Eagle to Refuse to be a Victim to competitive programs and police training, rely heavily on support from the NRA Foundation. When people donate to the Foundation, whether directly or through a Friends of NRA Banquet, they expect their money to be supporting those programs. Without Foundation support, those programs – many of which were essentially shut down during COVID and are only now getting back up and running – the funding must be drawn from the NRA’s general funds, which are not budgeted to cover those costs. This means that Doug Hamlin will either have to cut money from other programs to fund these or drastically reduce these programs, likely resulting in additional furloughs of staff members and limited program services.
This should not be happening!
The NRA Foundation should not be used as a private bank for NRA executives, but it MUST be used for the purposes for which it was created – Support for NRA Programs!
The Foundation has the right, and even the responsibility, to decline a grant request from the NRA if the request doesn’t meet legal standards or there are insufficient funds to support it. The duty of the Foundation Trustees is to act in the best interest of the Foundation. The core interest of the Foundation is to fund NRA programs and, when funds are available, complementary programs from other organizations. And funds are most certainly available.
I have no doubt that Mr. King and the Foundation will claim that this is all an overreaction on the part of the NRA leadership. They will point to the DC settlement agreement and claim that they are simply following the rules of that agreement. They’ll show examples of grants they’ve made to various organizations that meet their basic criteria, and they’ll claim that they were on the verge of approving some grants for the NRA, but not all, and not at the dollar levels requested, even though they are flush with cash after years of not receiving significant funding requests for many NRA programs. Much of that money is in the form of self-perpetuating endowments. These endowments are so large that the programs can operate off of the interest, without reducing the principal, even if additional monies are not coming in.
It appears to me to be a case of sore losers trying to take the ball and go home with it. Just when we are getting the NRA on track and moving smoothly, this is really frustrating, especially with the same players playing the same silly games.
If Mr. King, Mr. Cotton, and their friends want to start their own charitable foundation, find donors to fund it, and make grants to worthy causes as they see fit, they’re welcome to do that. This foundation, The NRA Foundation, was created by the NRA to fund NRA programs. The money was raised from NRA members, under the NRA name, for the express purpose of supporting NRA programs.
I hate that this spat couldn’t be resolved behind closed doors without more drama and rancor. I wish there were some other way to get this straightened out. I hope that Mr. King and company will see the error of their ways and do the right thing soon.
Until they do, whether voluntarily or under court order, please don’t let this hinder your generous spirit. A number of Friends of NRA events are upcoming, and I encourage you to attend and have a good time, as I’m confident the money will eventually reach its intended destination. If you have a substantial contribution you’d like to make to the NRA, and you’d like to have the favorable tax relief of making the contribution through the NRA Foundation, don’t hesitate to get in touch with them and discuss it, making clear that you want your donation to go only to NRA programs. If you have other funds that you’re unsure how to allocate, direct contributions to the NRA or NRA-ILA are always helpful and appreciated.
Meanwhile, those of you who are involved in the Friends of NRA should know that, according to the Foundation’s Bylaws, members of the various State Fund Committees are the recognized members of the NRA Foundation, and as such, have certain legal rights. I encourage you to actively engage in discussions with each other and coordinate with committee members in other states to utilize your influence in pushing the Foundation Trustees in the right direction.
The NRA is on the right track, we are making substantial improvements, and we are doing a much better job of serving our members. We’re still stretched too thin, and money’s still too scarce, but we’re moving in a good direction and making progress in spite of setbacks like this.
A good sampling of what the NRA is doing for you right now can be found by looking at our NRA-ILA list of active legal cases and amicus briefs.
About Jeff Knox:
Jeff Knox is a dedicated political activist and the director of The Firearms Coalition, following in the footsteps of his father, Neal Knox. In 2024, Jeff was elected to the NRA Board of Directors, underscoring his lifelong commitment to protecting the Second Amendment. The Knox family has played a pivotal role in the ongoing struggle for gun rights, a legacy documented in the book Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War, authored by Jeff’s brother, Chris Knox.
Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, The Firearms Coalition is a network of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs, and civil rights organizations. The Coalition supports grassroots efforts by providing education, analysis of current issues, and a historical perspective on the gun rights movement. For more information, visit www.FirearmsCoalition.org.
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