It’s pretty hard to get a group of gun folks together these days without discussing the National Rifle Association’s “reform” effort, which appears to have started in mid-May with the election by members of a small “reform” slate of candidates and new officers by members of the Board of Directors.
The new leadership team includes President Bob Barr, the former Georgia congressman. The First Vice President is Bill Bachenberg, and the Second Veep is Mark Vaughan. Stepping in as the new executive vice president is Doug Hamlin, who has his work cut out in the aftermath of longtime EVP Wayne LaPierre’s departure earlier this year.
The elections of “Reform” candidates Jeff Knox, Judge Phillip Journey, Rocky Marshall and Dennis Fusaro signaled members want a change, especially when two former NRA presidents — John Sigler and David Keene — did not make the cut. Another veteran director, Joel Friedman, also lost re-election, while Jim Wallace, longtime executive director of the Massachusetts Gun Owners Action League and seen by many as a “reform-minded” came up short in the general election but captured the 76th Director’s seat during the special election at the NRA annual members’ meeting. He provided the accompanying photo.
The past five years, since problems within NRA became public at the Indianapolis meeting, have been rough for NRA. It has lost millions of dollars in revenue as members either closed their wallets or shifted their financial support to other gun rights organizations, and by some estimates, the NRA has lost more than a million members.
Around our conversation in the farmland of eastern Washington’s Palouse country there was plenty of disappointment in the now-departed former NRA hierarchy, and hopes the organization will rebound with new blood at the helm. Nobody said they had left the organization, and the circle included some life members and at least one endowment member who had once served on the NRA Board of Directors.
If I ever have time, I’m going to write a memoir. It won’t be “Hell, I Was There … Redux,” but it may be interesting. My working title is “Ghost Camps,” and it will include plenty of campfire talk.
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