The Gun Collective Podcast 147 – NRA 2nd VP Mark Vaughan

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Welcome back to the gun collective podcast. My name is John Patton, boys and girls. This is going to be an interesting one. I know a lot of you guys have a lot of questions and a lot of concerns with the NRA and we are going to get into it. We've got Mark Vaughn here and I'm telling you what, it's going to be a good show. Now, before we get into it,

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My guest today is second vice president of NRA and the president. If I'm not mistaken of the Oklahoma Rifle Association, Mark Vaughn, am I pronouncing that correct? Is it Vaughn or Volhan? Vaughn. That's correct, John. So what is second vice president? What is that? That's a good question. John, thanks so much for having me on your show today. It's an honor and a pleasure.

So the officers of the board of directors of the National Rifle Association are elected by the board. And there are three officers, the second vice president, myself. Bill Bockenberg is the first vice president and president Bob Barr were elected at the board meeting directly after the annual meeting in Dallas on May the 20th of this year.

Okay. So I know Bill Bockenberg, I've been to his facility out here in Pennsylvania, Lehigh Valley, sporting place, awesome place. It's a wonderful place. I've heard mixed things from enthusiasts on Bob Barr. I personally don't know a ton about him. How does that relate to Doug Hamlin, who was the, or is the replacement for Wainlop here? How do you guys interact there? How does that work? That's a good question.

So Doug Hamlin is the executive vice president, which was a Wayne-Loppier's position for all those years. EVP is essentially the CEO, would be the private sector equivalent of our organization. So Doug is the operational boss of the NRA.

He's been with the NRA for just nine, maybe 10 years. He came over to head up publications and he's done just a fabulous job in publications, cutting our costs, expanding our circulation. We have five or six national publications that he and his team manage.

And so from that success, the board thought he would be a great leader for our organization. And in the five months that he's been at the helm, he has wrought some significant changes to the organization. And we couldn't be more pleased thus far.

Well, that's good to hear and we can certainly get into what those changes are, but I feel like our audience needs a little bit more context on you as a person and your background. Can you give me, I know it's years of your life, can you try to compress down a little bit of your background and how you ended up as Second VP?

You bet. Well, I have been a lifelong NRA member as I'm sure many on this watching this podcast are today. But since I was 18 and I became a life member a few years after that,

So I've been a long time gun enthusiast to gun nerd. I certainly love the mechanical nature of guns. I love collecting guns. I've been involved in several phases and several competition.

events throughout my life, including cowboy action shooting. I shot registered ski for a number of years, silhouettes. All those things have been part of my life and I've been a shooter since I was a kid.

As well as NRA instructor for shotgun, NRA RSO, hunter education instructor, and a lifelong hunter. I enjoy hunting quail and other birds. I'm an upland game hunter. Me too. And have bird dogs and like to shoot old side by side shotguns. That's what I do.

In fact, Damascus barrel Parker shot guns or what I what I know. Yeah, I've only ever seen one of those. I've only ever like put my hands on one of them.

Well, they're wonderful, wonderful guns. And I get a real joy out of taking something, a field that was made 120 years ago and still taking game with that gun. And it's just an enjoyable part of hunting. Guns are an important part of hunting for me. And how I got more involved with the NRA really started

About 10 years ago, and some of your listeners here may remember the incident.

I was managing, I had sold my business, but was still operational director of a facility in Oklahoma. And in late September of 2014, so 10 years and two months ago, a disgruntled, discharged employee came into the facility at a tie at shift change at 5 p.m.

and began attacking workers there and staff with a large knife. Oh my gosh. Right. It was a horrible scene. Oh my gosh. I was offices in an adjacent building. I was notified within a few minutes of that person arriving.

I ran downstairs. I grabbed my AR-15 rifle out of my vehicle and ran to the building where this was all occurring. And it was, like I said, a horrific scene. People streaming employees and team members streaming out of the building. We had roughly 150 people in the facility at that time.

And it was a time of shift change, like I said, so you've got two shifts, you've got an incoming and outgoing right, right, on, on premises at the time. Right. So we had approximately 100 people coming into the facility and 100 people off, you know, off work, leaving the facility. And, um,

I ran into the facility really not knowing what I would find. And I found an individual attacking a woman with a knife aggressively. I yelled at that individual to stop and he ran off. He ran around a corridor and I ran after him. Well, as I made the turn, here he comes at me with this knife at a full run.

And, you know, after yelling maybe once or twice for him to stop, I fired three rounds. And I hit the subject twice in capacitating him. Okay. And so little did I know at this time that he had already murdered and killed a worker by means of beheading her.

Oh my God, that had happened just moments before. And of course, when I arrived, he was in the process of doing that to another, another coworker. So it was, I mean, I'm getting chills. You know, that to me sounds like a horror movie.

you know, seeing that because we hear these things. And fortunately, we've been able to speak to a couple of folks on this show about these sorts of things, but yours sounds your incident that you were involved in sounds particularly, how do I put this fucking disgusting? Yeah. So you hit the dude twice. You said you incapacitated him. Did he not die? He did not die. He

He did he did recover from his wounds and and stood trial and is currently serving Multiple life sentences in the Oklahoma State penitentiary Wow Yeah, it the scene as I said was was extremely chaotic and there were employees and innocent people all around right in the hallway behind you know behind this individual and so it was

you know it required a lot of concentration on my part to uh... to do what i did and uh... you know you you hear these stories uh... you know i've been an also a part i skipped i've been a law enforcement officer uh... in it in law enforcement training they teach you about auditory exclusion tunnel vision all of that well it's true i mean i

I never heard my rifle going off. I never saw anything but the sights on my rifle and the subject. It was quite a traumatic event for the team and myself.

But I'm so pleased that I was there because I believe that God put me there at that moment to save some lives. And I don't consider myself a hero at all for that. I was well-equipped to do what I had to do, and I was there. I think it's good that somebody was there to stop this guy from doing any more damage than he already did. How many people lost their lives that day?

There was just one person who lost her life others were injured. Okay

And you know, there were people that tried to stop him. You know, there were, you know, we had some pretty burly warehouse guys and they're trying, trying to stop this guy. But it was, you know, it was, it was a pure evil is what they were facing. And this guy was, was certainly determined. And he fought them off. He injured some of them, but not in a life threatening way. But there's no telling what other havoc he would have perpetrated there.

Had even been able to go on with that stuff. Did you ever think you'd have to shoot one of your employees? No, it never it never crossed it never crossed my mind I mean, that's that's crazy, you know to even start to think through something like that. Do you still have the rifle? I do I do The rifle is actually when I say it's not in my possession. I still own it. It is the NRA museum in in

headquarters in Virginia is putting together a display of law enforcement firearms used in incidents. And so they asked me to send my gun out there about a year ago. And they're working on that display now. Sure. I've actually been to the NRA Museum. And if you're a gun nerd, it's kind of like Mecca.

Oh my goodness. There are so, so many interesting guns in there. And as you might imagine, you're only seeing probably 5% of the guns the NRA, the NRA has. We have a couple of huge walk-in rooms, vaults downstairs that house the rest of the collection. And it is an amazing resource for researchers and gun enthusiasts across

you know, across the world. It's a wonderful resource. I definitely agree. What kind of rifle was it that you used? It was a cold SP one. Oh, OK. Yeah, it was an in for configuration. So.

Yeah, I know our audience would ask. And that's one of those, OK, what kind of gun was it? What are you working with kind of thing? So you go through this horrendous thing. Do you still deal with the trauma? Is there latent PTSD from this?

John not not really I mean it it was Though though the scene was horrific and and it was it was traumatic at the time I really don't I don't struggle with that in my daily life You know occasionally I'll have a feeling about it, but you know, I know that I did the right thing and it was It it was something that that that I was placed to there to do and I feel very good in my soul about that

That's good. I think a lot of people that have dealt with those sorts of things can struggle quite a bit. So it's good that you've had some time to process and kind of get right with it internally. So you go through this incident and how does that lead? You said that was sort of how you started to get with the NRA. Did they get involved in your case? Is that what happened? Well, no, not so much.

I had, during this period of my life, I had decided to pursue a lifelong ambition of law enforcement. So I had gone through law enforcement academy and I was actually a reserve deputy for the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office at this time. So the NRA got hold of that information and every year the NRA

And I just got my packet today about we select a law enforcement officer of the year, right? And these submissions come from all over the country and for the glorious action, you know, under fire, whatever it is. And ultimately, I was selected as the 2014 law enforcement officer of the year for the National Rifle Association. Okay.

There were some awards and accommodations regarding that. A year or so later, they asked me to serve on the law enforcement assistance committee at NRA, and I agreed to do so. That was kind of my door into further involvement with the NRA.

The NRA since the early 60s has been heavily involved in law enforcement support. We still train law enforcement officers. We provide NRA law enforcement instructor program.

And small to mid-size agencies, most large agencies have their own training program nowadays, but particularly in the early days, and even through today, smaller agencies still rely on the NRA for law enforcement training, annual qualifications, training on shotguns, long-range rifles, handguns, all facets of firearms instruction for law enforcement.

So you go from being a part of this committee and somewhere along the line, you say, you know what? I think I would like to be on the board or did something else occur?

Well, over the years, you know, in late 2016 or 2017, I was asked to serve in the Education and Training Committee because I have had been instillama in an array instructor, both on law enforcement and civilian side. So I was pleased and honored to serve on that committee as well as continuing my service on law enforcement assistance committee.

In 2018, then President Pete Brownell. I know Pete. Yeah, he's a very good guy. Ask me to, if I was interested in running for the board of directors, and I said I was. And so ultimately in April of 2019, I was elected and began my service at the honorary board at that time.

Okay. And that happens to be a time when we'll say the NRA was dealing with a little bit of internal turmoil. Right. Yeah. That was my first board meeting. As a board member, it was in Indianapolis in April, late April of 2019, during the Oliver North, Chris Cox, and it was kind of the beginning of the upheaval, if you will. Sure. Yeah.

I won't get into the details. Like I told you, when we spoke on the phone a while back, I have had me personally have had a kind of shitty relationship with the NRA, thanks to guys like John Frazier interrupting our event to scream at a bunch of us.

Accusing of electioneering and things of that nature and it was it was pretty Telling at the time And this was you know, I want to say 2016 2017 somewhere in that time frame, right? I don't remember exactly it was when the annual meeting was in Atlanta We were you know, I see we myself several other people I used to do what was called then the TGC panel okay, and

You know, long story short, it was not a good way to grow the connection with the enthusiast crowd. Yeah, a room full of enthusiasts. And here's the NRA shaking their fist at all of them, basically. It was not great. So I want to talk about, I want to sort of set the stage here for both my understanding and everybody listening's understanding of the board.

because the board, as I see it, is kind of a behemoth inside of a behemoth. The board is what, 76 members, correct? That's correct. So 76 members, which is monstrous. What happens when you get, so you get elected, then what? Well,

Obviously, you become more informed of the going on of the organization. Sure. You know, in John at first glance, because I shared your feeling right down the line about the size of the NRA board, it being unwieldy at that size. However, as I've gotten there and I begin to understand, you know, we have

We have almost 50 standing committees. And some of them are very active, right? And some of them are not real active. It just depends on the nature of what they are. We have committees that run the organization like the audit committee, which is common and even in public company boards. And we have the finance committee. We have a bylaws and resolutions committee.

And then, you know, on down to different competitions, a silhouette committee, a high power committee. And, and, you know, the, my feeling is the members, the three and a half or four million members.

They expect representation across all that range of activities that the NRA is in. I mean, many people think we're just a lobby organization. And of course that is a key component of what we do.

We do lots of training and education. We do competitions, programs. We have a broad legal department that supports many second amendment cases related, second amendment related cases throughout the country. We have 20 or 30 of these going on all the time. We have a legal affairs committee that helps steer that. So there's a legal affairs committee and a legal committee?

No, no. We have a legal team internally, right? And contractors. And the legal affairs committee steers much of that work. That's made up of important members. So, you know, we're not like a

You know like a general motors that makes cars or you know a car go that makes food products. We do a broad range of things and I believe our constituents are members. Want want to have a say in all parts of our business and that's that's done through that large board.

Okay, so I don't want to dwell too much on the board being sure in, you know, we're going to disagree on that, I think. Sure. Okay. I'm very much like a lean mean kind of I run my business with two of us. So right, you know, to for me, looking at a board of 76 people is absurd.

I want to try and understand more about just the general function of the board. My understanding is that the board is not a paid position with the exception of you get travel and things, you know, a couple of times a year you get that and certain board members are paid. Like, I think when Nugent was on there, he was getting paid to do performances, things of that nature. Is that accurate?

That is historically accurate. So there is no compensation for being on the board. Normal expenses in the course of your board duties like travel, hotels, that is covered, but there's no compensation. There have been some instances in the past, and it's really just been a handful of instances, John, where people do provide services to the NRA

for, you know, they get compensated for that. That's not for board service, like, you know, Ted Nugent, you know, he would come into a concert or whatever, and he would get paid for that. He did not get paid for his board service. However, in our new compliance commitment to members, John, that is not going to happen in any degree. But what is not going to happen? Just not going to make that clear. Any board member

There'll be no compensation of any kind for any right moving forward. So that is that is a change that's underway. That's part of our new compliance commitment to our members.

In terms of attendance, that was a challenge that we as a community had made, our friend Adam Kraut, who is now at Second Amendment Foundation when it was running for board, and he brought up

chart where he tracked all of the attendance and people like Marian Hammer made no effort and the celebrities made no effort. They were basically just filler at that point. Is there any changes to the attendance policy for board members to meetings?

Well, there has been no formal change in attendance policy, but we as a board are addressing attendance and it is as we bring in new board members, we're making certain that they understand the importance

I mean, that's why we have a board and that's why we have meetings is so that we can get to the meat of these subjects and we need all the board members there to participate. So we are heightening as an organization. We're heightening the demands of board members to make sure they're there. Why not take a policy for that, though? At this time, we don't have a policy for that, but we. I'm saying why not? Why not try to make a policy out of it?

Because it really exists to me. Right. We have, President Barr has appointed a special committee on organization that's addressing items like this because we are hearing from the members the same thing, John, that you're saying that we need board members to be active and participative. And for the law, simplify for the people listening, we need board members to give us it.

Yeah, there you go. I'm a life member. If this is an organization built on its membership, we need board members that actually care. Historically, that was not the case, which is terrible.

Well, sure, you can't paint a broad brush. But yes, we have had certain board members that are just placeholders, and that needs to, you know, that will change. I think we're seeing, you know, we've had over a 30% turnover in the past five years of board members. So, you know, at least one third of our board

Is brand new well i say brand new in the past five years sure and if you throw five and a half years and that that would include me you know i just came on five and a half years ago so. We are getting you know we are getting fresh blood this last election this last spring brought in several brand new board members.

as most elections have. This brought in a few more, but I don't remember the exact number, but I think there were five or six brand new board members out of 25 roughly elected. Why do you think it took so long for that to happen? Because when we were attempting to get Adam on the board,

The NRA fought us like we're putting people in the hallways trying to block people from voting for Adam It was an active campaign against new blood someone that represented the gun enthusiast community And it seems like that's changing, you know I will give you guys if if there is a third new membership or a new members of the board Perhaps that is changing, but why do you think historically that people like that were kept out?

Well, you know, John, I, I've just been a member for five, a board member for five years, but, you know, I believe that that our former EVP, you know, had

An undue amount of control and say and some things and and that was not healthy for organization. I think some of that was born out in this in this recent trial in New York, you know earlier this year.

You know, and myself and many others, I'm not going to step out and call myself a reformer. But I am certainly think it's a new day at the NRA. And we're calling it NRA 2.0. And it starts with more demands on our leadership, more demands on our board to be more responsive to the world around us. I 100% agree. Right.

Well, we'll get into the New York thing in a little bit. I want to try and keep laying the groundwork for people to understand the functionality of the board. You know, these, these 76 people in the grand scheme, like if we're looking at the organization as a whole, the board as a whole, what is the goal of the board? What do you guys collectively trying to accomplish?

Well, that's a big question to ask. Obviously, we have to guide the organization in financial decisions. How do we prepare the organization to be ready for the future?

And that can trickle down into many of these 40 plus standing committees, right? It could be sports shooting. It could be making sure our bylaws are up to date. So the role of the board is to make sure that we have a healthy organization moving forward. That is certainly the charge of the board.

and that we have relevancy across our broad base of activities, not just for today, but in the future. And I think that we've stumbled in that for sure. We're a 153 year old organization. And we're far from being perfect. We've made our mistakes, we've trusted some people, perhaps we shouldn't have. The fact of the matter is,

the board members that I work with and that I talk to and I believe the majority of the board members, they understand this is a very important role we have and that we've got to make this organization ready and relevant for the future.

Okay. That's what we're there for, John. Sure. And I know that is, like you said, that is a big sort of thing to try and encapsulate. That's difficult. When you say you guys didn't trust the right people or had put trust in the wrong people, are you talking about Wayne? Yes. That right there is refreshing to hear. I know

that a lot of my audience, I'll give you an example of something that I did, and I know a lot of people have probably done something similar. I would get a phone call, even though I'm a life member, by the way, I would get a phone call for donations, which if we can do something about this constant asking for money from life members, no, first of all, no. Second, what I would say is I will not give another dime until Wayne LaPierre and

His cronies are out because it was never just Wayne. It was all of his, the issues came from more than just Wayne. It was everybody on the board that was allowing all of that nonsense for many, many years to go on. And I think a lot of people,

will be refreshed by the fact that you said you you see the sort of mistake made interesting Wayne Lop here because it was a giant fucking mistake giant. So the board.

In the 2019 timeframe, when you kind of came on board, you were just a, quote unquote, regular board member at that point. You were not the second DP at that point, correct? Yeah, I was just elected second DP five months ago in May. Right. Right. Yeah. So I was a freshman, a freshman board member, right? With not some committee assignments and learning the ropes, right? Which takes a bit.

So at that point, the board as a whole was being prepped for the New York lawsuit, being told to maintain documents and things of that nature. And at that point, why, you know, if the board knows that this lawsuit is coming and that there are issues

Uh, why did it take so long for Wayne LaPierre to be rooted out? What was what between, you know, finding out that he was a massive issue, you know, in terms of legality, according to the state of New York. Um, and, and him actually getting out of the organization that took years. Why was that? Do you know?

Well, John, of course, the New York trial is still ongoing. The judge has not rendered his final ruling on the matter. We're expecting that any day. Okay. So that's good to know. That's good to know. So I am not able to comment because of ongoing litigation there on some of those matters. But I will say that

The bulk of the board was surprised, I certainly was, to hear of the revelations brought out in January, February of this year during the first phase of that trial.

So I find that fascinating because I know people like Tim Harmsen from a military arms channel. I'm not sure if you know of Tim, but Tim was Tim and Eric from Iraq that 8888. They were some of the loudest proponents of reform in the 2015, 2016, 2017 era, banging the drum of Wayne is doing things that are wrong. So if

the members knew at the time, how is the board ignorant to this? Is there a disconnect between membership and the board that we're unaware of, or is it just sort of perhaps head in the sand? We don't want to hear this, you might be wrong kind of thing. What do you think caused that disconnect? Well, you know,

And I'm aware, by the way, I'm aware that these are not easy questions to answer. They're not easy, and there's really not a good answer. I would give one if there was. I mean, I was not on the board at that 26, 16, 17, 18 timeframe. So, you know, I really didn't have vision into anything. But, you know, I believe that there was a

I believe there was an aura of invincibility around Wayne that caused him somewhat to be bulletproof. And I don't want to say beyond scrutiny. I don't believe that's the correct answer. But he was insulated, I think, from some of this, having garnered so much power in the organization over a long period of time.

Was it official power? Did bylaws get changed to give him more power through the organization? Or is it just relationship-based power? Yeah, I think it was relationship-based power, and it had momentum behind it because of long history.

I think you could probably point to examples in private industry and government organizations and NGOs and all that. You have a long-standing leader that's done quite a bit of good for the organization. Certainly, as Wayne had done up to that time period, there is momentum there, and it's hard to break it.

I think it's difficult for people to take that as, and I understand that you were not there, so it's difficult for you to know these things. I think it's difficult for the membership, the enthusiasts that are in the gun collective audience. I think it's difficult for them to just not go, what the fuck? Why were we let down? Why was the organization strong along for so long?

Is there a plan to hold these sort of, I don't know what to call them, the cronies of Wayne LaPierre, is there a plan to hold these people accountable or is this going to be wait until the lawsuit is done and see what happens then? Well, Jonathan, I believe that the members are more aware, I mean,

The revelations of the recent trial, which was eight months ago, right, have made a greater awareness within the NRA membership.

the NRA members vote for board members. We had a pretty good upheaval this last membership, this last election cycle. I believe the members will be going back to the ballot box at the NRA, this election cycle, and some of those folks will be replaced. I mean, that's how you do it. I mean, there's no

I don't believe this is a criminal case, or I don't believe there's those kind of charges at play, but for some of those board members who were there at that time, the membership, I believe, will continue to speak as they have in recent, in the past recent year or two, and get them replaced. And that's the proper way to address it. That's the plan.

I think people, you know, the membership and the people that left. Speaking of that, at one point, it was what there was a claim of 10 million members. And now you just said three to four, somewhere between three and four million. Is that where like how many members have we lost in the last 10 years from the organization?

Well, that, that is not information that I can, uh, I can provide. However, uh, you know, we were around five million members somewhere. Okay. Right. Uh, yeah, we were never more than, never more than that range. That's my mistake. I do, I do remember that now it was five million. So, so we're, we're looking at between three and four million members, uh, and then potentially

millions more that look at your organization as what a lot of people refer to as FUDs, the Elmer FUDs. That's the terminology that gets coupled with the NRA. Why do you think that is?

Well, I believe, I believe the NRA, you know, in this period of litigation and, you know, you're throwing COVID in there too and it impacted our organization. And, you know,

We took our eye off the ball from a program, some competitions and connection out there in the firearms enthusiast marketplace, if you will. And that's the first thing we're addressing as we move into NRA 2.0. We have to revitalize that connection.

Why, you know, we've done surveys of Americans and many identify themselves as NRA members who are not. I mean, if you, you know, this survey indicated that approximately 20 million people in this country identify themselves as NRA members. That's because, oh, my, their granddad was an NRA member or their dad or their mom. And they never actually joined, but they still consider themselves NRA members. So that's interesting. Yeah.

And I'm not sure about the FUD deal, whatever you call it, the old white guy syndrome, but the fact of the matter is, and here's a poster right here,

My local gun club, the Oklahoma City Gun Club, just celebrated our 25th annual Women on Target program, right? We had 400 plus women out there having a great day in shooting, introduction and orientation.

We have four to five hundred gals every year at this at this and this is something the NRA put in motion and we have NRA women on target events all across the country all states so you know we're.

You know, maybe we're portrayed as, as, as old fuddy duds, but the fact of the matter is now we've got, we've got plenty of a ground to plow, right? I'm not saying we're nearly where we need to be, but our outreach to women and juniors and, and, and other constituencies has always been there and it needs more emphasis and it's going to get significantly more emphasis moving forward. That's good to hear. Yeah. I think there are

Tons of categories missed outside of women. You know, women is only one identifier to the modern gun enthusiast. Sure. I think we've seen, and we've talked about this in my content, and I'm sure you've had these conversations where in the last 10 years, we've seen a complete shift

In who the quote unquote normal gun owner is it's it's changed it's kind of fascinating. What kind of things are the board members looking at in terms of transparency with the membership.

Because I think that was one of the issues that kind of blindsided the membership was that we want to know what's going on. The membership wants to know who's getting paid, why they're getting paid, how much, all these sorts of things, we want to know that our membership money is being well spent.

I would run things differently, of course. I think the competition, having multiple competition committees is just a waste at this point in like the silhouette. And that may be a bias of my own, but I think to go back to that, I think people want transparency. Is there an effort within the board to make that happen for the members?

And absolutely. And part of our compliance commitment to members includes.

You know, we have a new compliance office within the NRA that is really reports directly to the board, John, and this team's charge is to oversight, another layer of oversight on compliance to our mission, compliance to our financial commitments, compliance to our legal commitments, and that we have

we have excessive redundancy to make sure that the members' money is being spent in a good way. Now, back in 2018, the state government of New York committed to put us out of business, right? Sure. They said they were going to do that. No, they publicly said it. Yes, they took extraordinary steps to make that happen. And as you can imagine, John, that took

Marshaling all the resources the NRA had, because obviously if we're put out of business, we don't have a mission anymore. So the organization has been focused on survival, and it's been a costly bill to pay. And you can argue we paid too much or whatever. That is up for argument. But the fact of the matter is,

that the state of New York did not win. They did not achieve their goals, right? Yeah, you guys are still here. We're still here. We're still fighting for the Second Amendment. We're fighting for American

the gun rights of americans and you know that is the good news we survived uh... we we weren't licked we we were wounded but we're we're rising from the battlefield and we're going to re-engage with our historic mission with our uh... are nostalgic mission in a lot of ways of going back and training the american gun owner

in how to use that gun and defense of themselves, of the country. I mean, the world is not a safer place, whether here or abroad, and the need for an organization that's focused on preparing the populace in the legal use of firearms is a very important thing.

I think it's kind of interesting that the compliance people are reporting back to the board because one could argue that the board was complacent in the things that transpired previously. So it's like reporting to the sort of

people that caused it issue or at least complacent in the issue. That's kind of fascinating. I don't know how else you would solve that problem. I'll say that. I don't have a good solution, right? But I could see that going sideways if it's not managed correctly. And hopefully this sort of 2.0 version of what the NRA is, we'll have an opportunity to do that. So you spoke on legal counsel being expensive. The board has legal counsel correct.

Yes, the board does have legal counsel provided by the NRA. So who picks that? We're talking about this could be too expensive. Who picked it? Well, board counsel would be separate from trial counsel or others. So I'm not quite sure how to answer that question. But the board has to say so via the legal affairs

The Legal Affairs is a committee made up of board members, right? Okay. And that's one of their roles is to guide the organization and its legal affairs, including selection of counsel and and whatnot. Yes. Okay. And so I think there are eight or nine members, board members on the Legal Affairs Committee. Okay.

So we're seeing the sort of telltale signs of the change. One of my concerns of years past, and this is more just me trying to understand where we're at currently.

One of the issues that a lot of my constituents, if you could call it that, would be the relationship that was incestuous with Ackermann McQueen, is the NRA, have we just give them the big middle finger at this point? Where are we at with that company?

Yeah, we're not associated with Ackermann McQueen in any way. There is an example, and of course I'm speaking as an NRA member here, not as the vice president of the NRA necessarily in this, but however it happened, we let Ackermann become too involved in our organization, too intertwined,

They had too much control over aspects of our organization. And really, that's going back a ways now because that all kind of fell apart in 2018. But that's one thing our current MVP Doug Hamlin did. He took back publications because publications, for the most part, was being run by Ackerman McQueen. And so he brought that in-house in 2018, 100%.

How are we outsourcing the marketing and the video efforts and things of that nature? Is that all fall under publication? That all falls under the publications group. Now, there are contractors involved with certain aspects of that.

of that business, but it is under control of NRA staff. I know one of the biggest spends, besides the just absolute, absolute waste that Ackermann was going through, just wasting money, was the sort of NRA commentators. Is there a plan to bring something like that back?

Yeah, there has been talk. I mean, as you know, budgets have been tight, not only due to the lawsuit, but due to COVID. But yes, that's part of our NRA 2.0 plan is revitalizing our outreach through all media that we can. And that will be a, you know, that will be a deliberative and a stepped process.

But yes, we're going to do more of that moving forward. And in more unique ways to get the message out. So the NRA has got to embrace the newest technologies, the newest social media pathways, and we're committed to doing that as time progresses. I would say that the idea of the NRA embracing something like TikTok or

I mean, even Instagram is laughable. It's laughable because when I look at the organization, I don't see anybody under the, like, I don't know the, the ages of the board members. I don't. But I would guess there's nobody under the age of 50.

And okay, maybe if there is, maybe there's nobody under the age of 40. And that means to me that you're missing tens of millions of gun owners that are my age and younger, I'm 40. And I think that is a huge issue. And I don't necessarily know how to connect those two things because it's like,

Thinking of the NRA having an Instagram account and trying to post a meme or something like that, something relevant is like thinking of your grandparents doing it. That's how a lot of people look at the NRA. What's the plan here to change that? How do you reach the people that have given you the middle finger aggressively? How do you reach those people and connect with them all over again?

We are engaging some new marketing and social media teams. I'm not really at liberty to talk about this because we've just began to engage them formally in the past six weeks. You're going to see

greatly updated and greatly relevant content coming out of the NRA. So that will happen fairly quickly. And that's a job that's never done. It's a process. But we know that we're behind on that front, and we intend to catch up as quickly as we possibly can.

I mean, is that going to include an apology? Like, hey, we fucked up? Is that even? Because I think that's what people deserve. I think that's what the membership deserves. Because when I look at the fact that the guy that was, quote unquote, the CEO was spending our membership money on suits that cost more than my car,

I tend to go, what the fuck? And I know that I'm not alone in that. I think that's the challenge that you have to face here. Is there an opportunity? Is the board even thinking of that? Of course. Part of moving forward is atonement. It's saying you made a mistake. And of course,

We have, the organization has been focused on getting this litigation behind us. And we're, you know, we're at the 12th hour on that. I mean, maybe, you know, maybe just a few minutes left, we're expecting the final ruling from, from Judge Cohen really any day. So, you know, we have to be guarded, I think a little bit in what we say because of that. But, you know, moving forward, you know, the first step is atonement. It's, it's saying that, that we could have done better and we should have done better.

So, okay. Yeah, I'm very eager to hear how that comes out. Regardless of the lawsuit, because lawsuit or not, the members learned a lot.

The outcome of that, I don't think, is even relevant to a substantial portion of people with the exception of how much it costs the organization. I think that's going to be interesting when we find that out. This opportunity for a 2.0, what are our guiding lights with that? Because I know that a lot of people that are listening to this are still skeptical, and they will be for a very long time.

including myself, based on how the membership was treated. But what's the sort of pillars of this 2.0? Well, first of all, it is re-engagement. We've lost connection with not only our members, but the clubs throughout the country. I mentioned the Oakland City Gun Club. We're an NRA affiliated club. We're 100% NRA club.

for decades, the NRA had field reps that were out in the clubs, making sure that the clubs got the resources they need from the NRA, competitions were being supported, training, all the things that the NRA has been so good at for

100 if it's 153 years right so That is that engagement is it's a grass a reengaging at the grassroots level I see and and that that is a hallmark of NRA 2.0 and I think that's something that had gone by the wayside and I think you guys agree right all these programs that made the NRA great Mm-hmm disappeared

Right. Or they didn't get the care they needed and became irrelevant, right? And just kind of faded away. And the gun enthusiasts has changed. I mean, you know, we still operate the national matches, you know, the precision matches like high power.

Small bore and others but you know we have to engage the new enthusiast a whole lot better than we have been and we're going to it's going to take some new people and new thinking to do that and we're bringing those people in that thinking to bear within the NRA.

So that taking, we believe that in the past six years, there's been around 20 million brand new gun owners come about in this country, and that's a hard number to pinpoint, but I think it's a pretty good number.

And the NRA has not done a good job of taking those on from a novice to intermediate to an enthusiast. We've not been part of that process, and we must become part of that process again. So you said engagement and falling back to the core ideals of the organization. Is there anything else?

You know, obviously connecting with the new gun owner, but what does that really mean? What are we looking at in terms of concepts or sort of larger guiding lights in these ways?

Well, you know, if you asked these 20 million new gun owners, you know, what organization might be out there to help me understand this better, help to be a better gun owner or, you know, an enthusiast, you know, would say the NRA, right? They say YouTube.

Yeah. They say YouTube before the NRA anymore. And I think that's one of your problems to deal with. That's one of your challenges. From our outreach perspective, that is a key component of it is to get more YouTube, more video instruction out there. That's how people learn. That's how people connect these days. And that's part of where we're going with what we're doing.

You know, I do want to say that NRA membership

you know we have we have an election coming up a board election if you're an nr a member you'll get a you'll get a ballot you know you have to be five years or longer in a member or life member or whatever uh... you'll be getting a ballot in your in your upcoming publication in early in the year take a hard look at those candidates you know and and you know there's a bio about the candidates you can go online they'll be they'll be bios available online do your research but

you know, part of this NRA 2.0 is getting leadership in that's willing to make those changes. And there's a core of us that are pushing this, but we need more. I mean, the whole, the rest of the two thirds get rid of them. You know, that's, that's my, that's my perspective. Mark, do you have time for one more semi difficult question? Yes. Okay. I know, I know I don't want to hold you up all day. I know you're very busy. The question I have is,

Why do you think the NRA was so quiet on issues like bump stocks? I mean, there were things that people would argue the NRA supported the bump stock ban, which is a big problem in and of itself. But things like pistol braces, I'm aware that there was funding towards the FRAC case.

But we look to an organization like the NRA to get out there on force reset triggers on 3D printed guns and say, no, no, no, you will not take our rights. Much like back when Charlton Heston was screaming from my cold dead hands, why hasn't the NRA had that in recent times?

Well, I think it's been a case of resources, John, and commitment. Now, the NRA, you know, did fund

initiatives around all those things. We didn't tout them. We didn't do a good job putting that out. I do want to say that we were otherwise distracted with the New York AG lawsuit elections. We point a lot of money toward a lot of different things. I think the NRA could have done a better job

in letting the members and the folks in this country know how we stood on those items, on those issues. I mean, not even a press release. That's the thing that I go, come on. There's no resources needed to put out, to type a one pager on, hey, we disagree with these issues or whatever it is. Is there, I mean, what the hell?

You know, I want to see the big shield in DC. I want to see the big shield share the opinions of the modern gun owner. And it seems like that has gone missed. You know, you say you're trying to reengage. What about the guy that is into 3D printed guns or, you know, cares about bump stocks and all that? Like what are we doing to reach those people?

You know, on the 3D printed guns, I don't have much of a comment there. I just don't know what we're doing, and I can certainly get back with you on an answer there.

I know when the bump stock issue, which I kind of came to light in the Trump administration, then President Trump, he didn't know on the bump stocks where we needed to go. And I know we didn't want to oppose his decision there at that time because he's been a wonderful supporter of the NRA. That is absolutely asinine.

That is absolutely asinine that we don't want to oppose the president, but we represent the membership. You don't represent the president. Well, who cares to be supported? You got to tell them no, right? Right. I mean, that's, that's clearly to me, that's a, that's a big misstep. Okay. I mean, I hear you. I hear you.

I don't want I'm very bad at talking over people when I get frustrated. But I think that was a big opportunity missed. And I can occur with you there. OK, that's good. Mm hmm. Well,

The NRA 2.0 is we will have shed the old guard in a lot of ways. We will have moved away from this litigation which has taken our time and treasure to a very great degree. We've been in survival mode, John.

you know, our bare bones programs have been maintained, but there's been very little icing on the cake, right? We just haven't had, we just haven't had the resources. And so that is, that is changing under NRA 2.0. We've got to re we have to re-engage our nostalgic part, our legacy part of our of our organization, which is a really cool part of what we've done in the past. And we've got to build on that. I think people

I think people look to the NRA and they see those golden days and they want some of that back and we understand it and we're going to deliver that, but we also have to deliver what today's gun owners are needing from the NRA.

I really appreciate your time and the opportunity to reach your fans and your constituencies, which I know is a large base for us. And I hope that today I've provided some useful information to them. Sure. I certainly will leave it to people to give their opinions in the comments, because they will, of course they will.

you know, and I hope you understand that I try to come at this as reasonable. I didn't want you to feel attacked because involved in some of these issues. I think it's just important for somebody like what you're attempting to do today is an attempt to talk to the people, whether they like what you say or not, we don't know yet. Right. Well,

My expectations are like some of what I said and not of, not like some of what I said as well. You know, I, yeah, I think it's different. You're in a, you're in a very difficult position. I don't envy it at all. Well, I don't, I don't get paid for it. I'm, I'm spending a lot of my time on it. And you know what, it is a labor of love. I believe

I believe in what we're doing at the NRA. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here doing it. I'm not doing it for prestige or meetings or travel. I've had enough of that in my life. I'm doing it because I believe the NRA is needed in this country more than ever.

in its history. How goes the country so goes the NRA? They're connected and I believe that connection is strong and it's vibrant. It just needs to be nurtured and that's what we got to do.

I have said many, many times over, and I think you'll wholeheartedly agree with this. We as gun owners need to be moving in the same direction now, especially with President-elect Trump. We need to be pushing back and regaining gun rights for Americans. And I, for one, don't want to lose the NRA. I want to lose the nonsense of years past. I think we all need to be moving in a new direction forward.

And hopefully the NRA will do a good job with the rest of us.

Well, I can assure you that President-elect Trump is with us. We're talking to him regularly. I was pleased to see his comments about national reciprocity on Gary and that was near and dear to my heart. So we hit the trifecta in the elections last week. We have to capitalize on that right now. And the NRA will be right there at the forefront of that, John.

Well, I appreciate your time. I know this was not a easy conversation to have, but I think it was necessary. And I really genuinely, I appreciate it. Maybe in the future, if there's interest from your side, we'll gladly have you back to talk about the changes, if there are any, and things that you guys are working on to fully settle into the 2.0. So I really don't appreciate your time, Mark. I would love to come back to your show, John. Thank you.

Thank you so much, man. Guys, out there listening, watching. If you have comments, questions, concerns, leave them in the comments section. Of course, check our sponsors, Camarado, C-A-M-O-R-A-D-O, and vertex V-E-R-T-X.com. The code is TGC at both of them. It will get you a discount. We would love the support. As always, thank you all for listening, watching, et cetera. We'll see you soon.

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