Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Just Not Getting It

I look at the comments on my latest AmmoLand piece, there, on social media and here, and the vast majority are not addressing its contents, but rather they are just reacting to the headline and going off on a tangent that does nothing to address and advance the ideas being proposed. If that keeps up, it means this infant will die forgotten in its crib without even being considered by people in a position to make things happen. 

That's very discouraging, especially since this is a unique idea that has precedent behind it.

Maybe this guy on Reddit can explain in a way I apparently failed to:

Please read it before dismissing it based on headline but I will attempt to give a short representation:

This is not to stop the lawsuit or defend Wayne. Quite the opposite: it’s to defend the organization from Wayne and the State.

This is a letter from George Douglas, an Alabama attorney and NRA Life Member, about the urgent need for members to file on behalf of themselves and the membership generally.

The gist is that if the leadership is guilty of the charges, the membership cannot trust the leadership or the NYAG to adequately represent the membership and interests of the non-profit. Additional representation of member interests is required to ensure any money misappropriated is returned to the members/organization.

To do this, we need some members and some allied legal representation that can practice in New York to file for intervention in the suit.

There is a good set of points that follow each other but a couple highlights of the line of reasoning are as follows:

“3. That the proper remedy for those wrongs, if they are proven, is not the dissolution of the NRA but recovery of the misspent funds from the individuals for the NRA as an entity, not for the NYAG or the State.

4. That because of the inherent conflicts of interest between the individual defendants and the NRA as an entity, the NRA must have separate counsel who are not chosen by the individual defendants.”

Mr. Douglas has volunteered to help with research but getting some legal assistance licensed to practice in NY is key, along with members willing to help.

Also:
Please read my earlier comment if not the link. This isn’t about stopping the claims, but ensuring member interests are protected while the courts evaluate those claims.

The NRA as an organization should be sever able from WLP and especially so if claims are with merit (which many of us suspect they are to at least some degree). Given that, killing the NRA because of WLP is throwing out the baby with the bath water. We can all agree that a better functioning NRA is better than killing it.
Is anyone willing to help?

UPDATE from attorney George Douglas:
Here's another interesting thought from an email I received earlier this morning. I hadn't gotten this far in analyzing specific items of damage to NRA members resulting from its dissolution, but the email sender pointed out that if that happened, all Life Members would lose the value of the membership they paid for and the tangible and intangible future benefits which would flow from that.
That would also seem to apply to anyone having time remaining on five-year memberships. 

3 comments:

Mack said...

What an eye-opening post.

Thank you - I think.

Henry said...

I suspect it's just because 99+% of the people reading your piece are in no position "to address and advance the ideas being proposed." I know I gave it a lot of thought, and came up with nothing. There are a few 2A lawsuit-filing entities that everybody knows about, most people don't have pull with, and some of which may even have conflicts with protecting a rival organization. Certainly they have seen this proposal by now, but if they are doing anything, they're not saying so.

David Codrea said...

They're not in a position to share a link with people they think might be able to help? Hey, Molon Labe!