National Rifle Association

Numerous Amici Join NCLA’s Ask for Supreme Court to Rule Against ATF’s Unilateral Bump Stock Ban

Retrieved on: 
Friday, February 2, 2024

Representing Texas gun shop owner and Army veteran Michael Cargill, NCLA challenges the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Bump Stock Final Rule and ATF’s expansion of the criminal scope of a statute by administrative fiat.

Key Points: 
  • Representing Texas gun shop owner and Army veteran Michael Cargill, NCLA challenges the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Bump Stock Final Rule and ATF’s expansion of the criminal scope of a statute by administrative fiat.
  • The Final Rule reversed ATF’s long-standing recognition that bump-stock-equipped firearms are not illegal machine guns, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rightly shot down the Rule early last year.
  • NCLA thanks the amicus parties for standing with Mr. Cargill and thousands of other legal purchasers of bump stocks.
  • Excerpts follow:
    “In the best tradition of our separation of powers jurisprudence, this Court should apply the criminal laws that Congress has written with unmistakable clarity.

Longtime NRA chief Wayne LaPierre is leaving the gun group in trouble but still powerful

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Wayne LaPierre will resign from the National Rifle Association at the end of January 2024.

Key Points: 
  • Wayne LaPierre will resign from the National Rifle Association at the end of January 2024.
  • During most of the 33 years he spent at its helm as its executive vice president, the gun group’s membership, revenue and clout grew sharply.
  • The group announced his impending departure shortly before the NRA’s civil fraud trial began in New York City.

From defeat to victory

  • He joined the NRA as a state lobbyist after working as a legislative aide to Virginia state Delegate Alfred Victor “Vic” Thomas, a conservative Democrat.
  • Often described as bookish and quiet, LaPierre brought to the NRA his considerable skills as a political strategist.
  • He also developed a pugnacious public persona, memorably calling federal agents “jack-booted government thugs” in a 1995 fundraising letter.

Fighting gun control

  • Though it occasionally celebrated and supported hunting or shooting sports, it increasingly emphasized the importance of firearms for self-defense.
  • With LaPierre at the helm of the NRA, congressional action toward gun control ground to a near halt.
  • LaPierre also led the NRA through a sea change in the prevailing legal interpretation of the Second Amendment as its long effort to enshrine gun ownership as a constitutional right came to fruition.
  • Those rulings have forced states to reassess gun regulations already on their books.

Losing members, waning influence

  • All told, they allegedly misused $64 million of the funds in the NRA’s coffers.
  • The NRA is reportedly hemorrhaging members, a key source of its operating revenue and the heart of its political power.
  • For the moment, it’s still the largest gun advocacy organization, though the spending gap between gun rights and gun control groups continues to narrow.

No permanent replacement yet

  • And yet his influence will remain in the short run, as longtime confidant Andrew Arulanandam will step into his shoes on an interim basis.
  • The NRA’s board will decide on a permanent replacement in May, when the group holds its annual meeting in Dallas.


Cari Babitzke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

'Designated contrarians' could improve nonprofit boards by disrupting the kind of consensus and groupthink that contributed to the NRA's woes

Retrieved on: 
Friday, January 5, 2024

And yet, the NRA had a 76-member board of directors, as well as a designated audit committee, which both had mandates to monitor the organization’s financial health.

Key Points: 
  • And yet, the NRA had a 76-member board of directors, as well as a designated audit committee, which both had mandates to monitor the organization’s financial health.
  • By reviewing transactions involving the NRA and its leaders more skeptically, the board might have helped the NRA avert some of its current legal troubles.
  • Together with Claire Hill, a University of Minnesota law professor, I’ve explored one way nonprofits might theoretically avert debacles, both large and small, in the future.

Board culture

  • They’re responsible for everything from weighing in on strategies to advance the organization’s mission, to hiring and evaluating top executives and setting their salaries.
  • The NRA’s board, like all nonprofit boards, had an obligation to detect the alleged wrongdoing and intervene to stop it.
  • But in general, it appears that NRA board members did little to oversee or restrain LaPierre, even when one top leader unsuccessfully sought big changes.

Too passive

  • But it’s too easy for their members to be too passive.
  • One reason for this is that nonprofit directors usually volunteer their time and don’t get paid for their contributions.
  • Sometimes, overly passive and deferential boards turn into rubber stamps that fail to challenge sloppy bookkeeping or question unwise hires.

What should they do?

  • We propose that trustees take turns being a designated contrarian, temporarily becoming a devil’s advocate obliged to challenge proposed board actions.
  • They would instead ask probing questions and offer feedback on reports by executives and officers.
  • The duration of this role would probably depend on how big a given board is and how often it meets.

Rare examples among nonprofits

  • Although using designated contrarians is not yet a widely used practice, a few nonprofit boards may have already embraced this concept.
  • For example, I’ve been told but have been unable to confirm that one major grantmaker’s investment committee tasks one of its members with challenging particular investment decisions.

No sure thing

  • And even for nonprofit boards in less dire circumstances, using rotating contrarians has its challenges.
  • Most serious among these is whether rotating contrarians will offer only inauthentic dissent, which studies show provides limited benefits.
  • To be sure, organizations that adopt this approach would need to be patient.


Dana Brakman Reiser does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors Names Three New Partners: Jason Snyder and Will Brewer IV in New York, and Noah Peters in Dallas

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, January 3, 2024

NEW YORK, Jan. 3, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors announces that three attorneys have been promoted to its partnership – Jason Snyder and Will Brewer IV in New York, and Noah Peters in Dallas.

Key Points: 
  • NEW YORK, Jan. 3, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors announces that three attorneys have been promoted to its partnership – Jason Snyder and Will Brewer IV in New York, and Noah Peters in Dallas.
  • Brewer III, founding partner of Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors.
  • At Brewer, Snyder is particularly active in the hospitality practice group – representing owners, developers, and management companies in some of the industry's most high-profile matters.
  • Based in the Dallas office, Peters brings extensive expertise in appellate advocacy, focusing on Labor & Employment and Civil Rights law.

Ramaco Resources Board Member Aurelia Skipwith Giacometto Appointed as Head of Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality

Retrieved on: 
Monday, November 27, 2023

LEXINGTON, Ky., Nov. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Ramaco Resources, Inc. (NASDAQ: METC) congratulates board member Aurelia Skipwith Giacometto, who has been appointed as Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality by Governor-elect Jeff Landry.

Key Points: 
  • LEXINGTON, Ky., Nov. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Ramaco Resources, Inc. (NASDAQ: METC) congratulates board member Aurelia Skipwith Giacometto, who has been appointed as Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality by Governor-elect Jeff Landry.
  • Giacometto previously served as Director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) during the Trump administration.
  • "Aurelia has been an invaluable member of the Ramaco board, who leads our Technology Committee in exploring alternative uses for coal to make advanced carbon products and materials.
  • "Louisiana is unique in its natural resources, which attract many people to the State," said Aurelia Skipwith Giacometto.

Actors are demanding that Hollywood catch up with technological changes in a sequel to a 1960 strike

Retrieved on: 
Monday, July 17, 2023

For the first time since 1960, actors and screenwriters are on strike at the same time.

Key Points: 
  • For the first time since 1960, actors and screenwriters are on strike at the same time.
  • Screenwriters, who have been on strike since May 2, have similar concerns.
  • Premieres are being canceled, and Emmy-nominated actors aren’t campaigning for those prestigious TV awards.

Rewind to the rise of TV

    • The first hit shows on TV aired in the mid-1940s, but actors initially earned far less from television than movies.
    • Around 1960, with the advent of hits like “Leave It to Beaver,” “Beverly Hillbillies” and “Bonanza,” TV became very profitable.
    • Actors demanded that their craft be compensated for TV shows about as highly as for their film appearances.
    • Residuals are a form of royalty paid to actors when movies and TV shows air on television after their initial run.

Fast-forward to 2023

    • People consume different types of media through subscriptions and streaming technology than they do while watching broadcast TV and cable television.
    • Actors and writers are concerned that their compensation hasn’t kept up with this transformation.
    • And the actors who are on strike argue that the formulas in place since 1960 to calculate residuals don’t work anymore.

Ejecting regularly scheduled shows

    • That’s because streamers started making shows with lower budgets, as it costs less to produce fewer episodes.
    • Since actors are typically paid per episode in which they perform, their salaries have dropped by virtue of having fewer appearances in even the most popular shows.
    • Another change has to do with the question of whether particular shows will keep going.
    • And their contracts often stop them from working on other shows between seasons.

Will AI erase actors?

    • Without a contract that says otherwise, once a studio films an actor, it can potentially use the actor’s likeness in perpetuity.
    • It is dystopian.” Until now, actors and writers say, the studios have refused to negotiate over AI with actors or writers.
    • But both unions see AI as a threat to their members’ livelihoods, a point SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher made on MSNBC.

No ‘pause’ for widening inequality gap

    • The gulf between what actors and top executives earn is a major difference between today’s actors and writer strikes and the 1960 strikes.
    • In 1965, executives made 15 times the average salary of their workers.
    • By 2021 those top execs were earning 350 times more than the average worker – including actors.

Watching union action on repeat

    • From Starbucks baristas to Amazon’s union organizers to the workers planning the pending UPS strike, more and more Americans are fighting for higher wages and more control over their schedules.
    • In fighting threats to their livelihoods, actors and screenwriters are the latest example of a national movement for stronger labor rights.

Taking students to the range to learn about gun culture firsthand

Retrieved on: 
Monday, June 26, 2023

Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching. Title of course: “Sociology of Guns”What prompted the idea for the course?For the past 10-plus years I have been deeply immersed in American gun culture both professionally and personally.

Key Points: 


Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

Title of course:


    “Sociology of Guns”

What prompted the idea for the course?

    • For the past 10-plus years I have been deeply immersed in American gun culture both professionally and personally.
    • Wanting to convey this diversity to others prompted me to construct and teach this course for the first time in 2015.

What does the course explore?

    • Rather than focusing exclusively on gun violence and politics, my course looks more broadly at guns in society.
    • The class begins by literally putting firearms in students’ hands.
    • Substantively, the course builds on the students’ firsthand experience of guns by exploring the multifaceted role they play in society.

Why is this course relevant now?

    • It often feels as though the United States is being torn apart by cultural and political divisions over guns.
    • These conversations should be built on a solid foundation of empirical knowledge about the role guns actually play in society - both positive and negative.

What’s a critical lesson from the course?

    • The trip to the gun range stands out because it offers direct exposure to gunfire.
    • In particular, those who were personally repulsed by guns prior to the field trip often come to see why guns can be attractive to others.
    • And the few gun enthusiasts I get in my course do not just have their enthusiasm reinforced; they also understand why others see guns differently.

What materials does the course feature?

    • “Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America_,” – Adam Winkler’s magnificent book on the historical and legal context of guns.
    • “Gun Culture 2.0: The Evolution and Contours of Defensive Gun Ownership in America” – my comprehensive summary of the history and development of gun culture in the United States.

What will the course prepare students to do?

    • This knowledge then helps students better understand their own personal beliefs about and relationship to guns.
    • Taken together, these lessons prepare students to make informed choices for the rest of their lives about being involved with guns – or not – as well as the place of guns in the communities in which they will live.

Ja Morant shows how a 'good guy with a gun' can never be Black

Retrieved on: 
Friday, June 23, 2023

Ja Morant, the 23-year-old star point guard for the Memphis Grizzlies, was barely 1 year old.

Key Points: 
  • Ja Morant, the 23-year-old star point guard for the Memphis Grizzlies, was barely 1 year old.
  • But his bursting athletic brilliance, so evocative of Iverson, comes with a cost: the perceived menace of the Black gangster.
  • On March 4, 2023, Morant posted an Instagram Live video of him displaying a gun at a Denver strip club.
  • Even when folks who look like Morant innocuously and legally possess a gun, they find themselves too easily typecast as villains.

Disciplining ‘thugs’ and ‘children’

    • When global sports icon Michael Jordan retired from basketball in 2003, the league found itself in a period of transition.
    • How would it continue to fill arenas, satisfy advertisers and spread its vision of a global game without its brightest star?
    • Not only did the NBA need a new crop of superstars to mitigate Jordan’s exit, but it also needed a fresh attitude.
    • Players openly professed their love for rap music, with stars like Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Iverson and others recording and releasing music.
    • “This guy is so worried about being cool: ‘Look at me, man: Life is like a rap video.’”

The NBA’s gun culture

    • In 2006, Stephen Jackson was suspended just seven games for firing a gun after an altercation at an Indianapolis strip club.
    • In 2010, Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton were suspended for 50 and 38 games, respectively, after pulling guns on each other in the Washington Wizards team facilities.
    • And in 2014, Raymond Felton was suspended four games after pleading guilty to charges stemming from an incident where he threatened his estranged wife with a gun.
    • In 2018, during a trip to Israel, Golden State Warriors star forward Draymond Green posed with an assault weapon.

Was this ever about guns?

    • To me, the answer is simple: In America, armed Black folks conjures pathological criminality.
    • So if people are so sure of Morant’s villainy, I ask without a hint of snark: What does responsible Black gun ownership look like?
    • To me, this was never about guns – just as, back in the early 2000s, it was never about rap music or baggy clothing.
    • According to this warped, uniquely American fantasy, “good guys with guns” can never look like Ja Morant – and good guys can always kill bad guys.

Brady Announces New Initiative to Harness Ad Agency and Media Company Talent in Changing America's Gun Culture Narrative

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, June 20, 2023

WASHINGTON, June 20, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- On Monday, during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Brady President Kris Brown announced a new "Free America from Gun Violence" culture change campaign, which aims to harness the power of creative ad agencies to change the cultural narrative about guns in America.  

Key Points: 
  • To change this narrative, influenced by decades of National Rifle Association (NRA) propaganda, Brady aims to partner with advertising and media companies to develop new content to achieve this, including commercials and digital advertisements.
  • "America and many other nations have successfully tackled public health challenges through creative culture change efforts, from smoking to seat belts to drunk driving.
  • Brady's " End Family Fire " campaign uses public service announcements to reach gun-owning households to promote safe storage practices.
  • ThisIsOurLane , Brady's physician-led program, is mobilizing health practitioners to address gun violence as a public health crisis.

George Soros hands control over his family's philanthropy to son Alex, after giving away billions and enduring years of antisemitic attacks and conspiracy theories

Retrieved on: 
Friday, June 16, 2023

Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros is handing control of his US$25 billion holdings, including his Open Society Foundations, to one of his sons, Alexander Soros.

Key Points: 
  • Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros is handing control of his US$25 billion holdings, including his Open Society Foundations, to one of his sons, Alexander Soros.
  • Baseless conspiracy theories have at times clouded his legacy as one of the world’s biggest donors to causes like higher education, human rights and the democratization of Europe’s formerly communist countries.

Success followed early hardship

    • After World War II, he moved from Budapest to the United Kingdom, where he studied at the London School of Economics while working part time in low-wage jobs.
    • By the 1990s he had amassed a fortune and established himself as one of the world’s most important financiers.
    • But his dedication to philanthropy and his support for political freedom are what brought him the most attention.

Deep-pocketed philanthropy

    • Soros’ first philanthropic foray was in 1979, when he funded scholarships for Black students in apartheid South Africa.
    • In the 1980s, he helped promote the exchange of ideas in Communist Hungary by funding visits of Hungarian liberal intellectuals to Western universities.
    • The broad goal of much of Soros’ philanthropy is to support tolerant societies with governments that are accountable and allow everyone to campaign, protest, donate to candidates they like or even run for office themselves.
    • But his fortune would have been far larger had he not given some $32 billion to the Open Society Foundations since 1984.

Antisemitic conspiracy myths

    • Soros’ wealth and influence have also made him a target of numerous conspiracy theories.
    • Such baseless accusations often target his Jewish heritage, invoking hatemongering and centuries-old antisemitic tropes.
    • As I explained in a book chapter about nationalism and populism, U.S. conspiracy theories have hounded Soros for years as well.
    • National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre accused Soros of planning a socialist takeover of the U.S. in 2018, evoking antisemitic myths from the early 20th century about a Jewish-Bolshevik plot.

A complex legacy

    • As is true for all billionaires, the Soros family fortune helps perpetuate a system of income inequality and concentrated political influence in the hands of the world’s wealthiest people.
    • When megadonors of any political preference make big donations to a candidate or party, their gifts can shape the agenda and distort democratic processes.
    • It’s still not clear how Soros’ son aims to put a stop to the demonization of the family’s philanthropic work.