Before I get to the things we need the NRA to do to be a successful organization in the future, I want to first lay out some background information. There’s a lot of bad information out there about the NRA and the problems it faces. Any real solution needs to fix the real problem, so I’ll start there.

If you’d like to skip ahead to the list of demands before signing, that is in the last section.

The Original Purpose Of The NRA

During the Civil War, it was calculated that for every hit on a confederate soldier, over 1,000 rounds were fired by union troops. During earlier wars, soldiers at least had an excuse, but more accurate minie balls in far better rifles meant that soldiers were capable of doing a lot better. But, they needed the training.

In 1871, the National Rifle Association was formed to solve that problem. Not only did the organization work to establish marksmanship clubs across the United States, but it also worked with military units and promoted international competition to keep the improvement going globally. In the following decades, the whole shooting world (civilian and military) became safer and more accurate.

The NRA initially backed U.S. gun control laws passed in 1934-1968. But, as the 20th century went on, gun control law after gun control law eventually got to the point where gun owners were fed up with all of the restrictions. So, members pushed the organization to make an effort to fight back against new laws, working to repeal and cut back on them starting in the 1970s.

The NRA Has Lost Its Way

Starting in the 1990s, the organization lost its way on both the educational and the legislative fronts. 

Today, the NRA is a joke in the gun rights community. Organizations like Gun Owners of America, Second Amendment Foundation, Citizens Defense Leagues, and now the Firearms Policy Coalition have picked up the baton that the NRA dropped. Now, when those other groups score a legislative or court victory, it's not long before an e-mail from the NRA hits our inboxes telling us all about how they won.

With the abandonment of serious gun rights efforts, surely they'd have been working hard on the training side to improve gun safety, right? Sadly, the training department has also become a joke. Once a dynamic effort, the training department kept having its budget cut until it got slow to respond to instructor and student needs, with the long delay creating a concealed carry certification a great example of this.

Training is on the edge of collapse. Now, the training department consists of two people. Grants to local training efforts and facilities are way down. Instructors are largely going independent, only maintaining certifications as needed for state concealed carry courses. Other organizations, like USCCA, are growing into the vacuum the NRA has left, while many states are scrapping concealed carry permit requirements, negating the need for certifications.

What Did They Do With All The Money?

Instead of spending time and money on improving gun owner education or fighting gun control, we've found in recent years that the leadership has been robbing and misusing the treasury. Friends and family billed the group for expensive services. The executive vice president spent big on suits, an expensive SUV, and travel. The organization has even been caught working with hostile foreign governments that hate gun rights and nakedly serving the Republican Party instead of its core mission.

The other problem is that the NRA exists within the increasingly polarized political environment every other organization has to exist within. Governments used to fund the NRA, but when they initially failed to toe the gun control line, that funding evaporated. In turn, the organization had to "pick a side" to survive in the 70s and 80s. Now, in the 21st century, the success of gun rights activism has led to gun ownership rising in all parts of society, and the NRA is having a tough time serving the wider community of gun owners.

In sum, the NRA establishment doesn’t want to perform the organization’s original mission or the political mission it picked up along the way, and it’s a much deeper problem than just bad spending at the top. 

The NRA Will Be Reformed, But We Need To Push For Good Reform

After decades of mismanagement and the corruption described above, the organization then spent big money on legal fees to protect the people who robbed it. Now, the leader has resigned and the organization is going to trial for wasteful spending and violation of its non-profit status. New York’s attorney general Letitia James wanted the court to dissolve the NRA, but the judge refused and the NRA is in the midst of a trial.

This is a trial that the organization’s current leadership will not win. The leadership will be removed by the court and an independent monitor will be in charge of putting the organization back together. When put together, it will get some of the money back that was stolen from it.

But, as NRA instructors and students, we need to be active in pushing for a good organization to come out of this effort.

What The Reformed NRA Must Do

The most important thing the court’s monitor or special master can do is completely end the parts of the organization that serve no charitable purpose. 

This might sound bad for gun rights on the surface, but anyone who takes a serious look at the fight for gun rights in the last decade already knows that the NRA has not been effective at that for years. Instead of soliciting donations for gun rights, the new NRA should instead refer members wanting to oppose gun control to donate money to serious groups like the GOA, SAF, and FPC. 

What remains should be focused on education, training, and grants to organizations that provide education and training. All funds from members and other sources should be used to build a serious training program that:

• Creates innovative and cutting-edge curriculum and software for youth, adults, law enforcement, and military (including virtual reality, laser training, and remote learning)
• Builds serious training facilities that cater to the training needs of all kinds of gun owners
• Provides real continuing education for instructors and coaches, not just collecting a payment every two years.
• Reaches out to all gun owners, regardless of background
• Uses industry standard concepts in firearms training, such as Cooper’s Rules and reasonable safe storage training that people owning a gun for defense might actually follow
• Does not allow gun control groups to dictate any part of the curriculum
• Does not plan events in “gun free” zones or invite speakers who require the audience to be disarmed
• Does not invite political candidates from any party to serve as keynote speakers at events to promote their candidacy

The organization should also have an ombudsman to take complaints at all levels. When anyone faces discrimination or a hostile work or training environment, the organization needs to address those concerns instead of sweeping them under the rug.

Finally, the new NRA should seriously seek to rebuild partnerships with private and governmental organizations at every level to spread good training for people of all ages and backgrounds. This would make the organization a real charity that serves the public good.