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Neal Knox Update |
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Missouri | |
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| Yesterday’s New York Times discussed NRA’s
$100 million deficit “net worth,” which was revealed in the Annual Report
available to members and the press at the Orlando Annual Meetings in
April.
They also reported that the NRA pension fund has a $9.9 million deficit, which according to NRA’s tax returns, hadn’t been contributed to for at least three years. Further, that in 2001 management doubled its line of credit to $12 million, and quickly drew $10 million out. But not to worry, Treasurer Woody Phillips told the Times, the deficit is due to unfulfilled obligations to provide members with magazines and services, and that the growing deficit is a “sign of strength,” indicating a growing membership. Such optimism must be why his salary and benefits totaled $349,250 in 2002. NRA’s response to members about the Times article is that the “deficit talk is just Neal Knox trying to create an issue,” trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. Even in Washington, $100 million is a pretty good sized molehill. I didn’t create it. In 1997, when the Finance Chairman and I, as first vice president, raised the alarm at the Board meeting and Annual Meeting concerning huge expenditures without contracts and other bad business practices, the deficit was about $46 million. Just for the record: The New York Times called me, I didn’t call them. They asked for my response to what they had uncovered, which included NRA’s tax returns and other information that isn’t available even to Board members, much less ordinary members like us. Director (and Vice President in the early ‘90’s) Wayne Ross told the Times he doesn’t mind deficit spending if NRA is “fighting the good fight.” I agree totally. And former Second Vice President Al Ross said that the members will always pony up the needed funds when it’s necessary. Again, I agree. And I told the Times reporters so. The Times mainly wanted to know if the deficit meant NRA wouldn’t be able to mount the kind of campaign that helped elect George Bush and Republican Congressional majorities in 2000. I told them it did not, that NRA could campaign as hard as necessary, for the members would provide the needed funds. That must have been a disappointment to them. But NRA is spending far too much on non-essentials particularly poor quality public relations and excessive fundraising mail, which fattens the treasuries of NRA’s fundraisers, printing and mailing houses, and the U.S. Postal Service while driving away members. And nothing has made me angrier than the millions of dollars given to the Republican National Committee for some of that money was used in efforts to elect anti-gun Republicans and defeat pro-gun Democrats. That wasn’t just unnecessary, that was stupid, and I told the Times so. (Funny, but the N.Y. Times, which editorially endorsed Wayne LaPierre as NRA E.V.P. when I was challenging him in 1997, didn’t use that quote.) While Treasurer Woody cavalierly dismisses the deficit, I know a lot of Directors don’t, and that there will be some serious belt-tightening when next year’s budget is presented at the winter Board meeting. That’s good, for NRA isn’t the U.S. Government. It can’t just print more money. And NRA can’t continue deficit spending forever not if it’s going to be around to fight for our gun rights. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco the most-reversed Federal appellate court in the land -- has reinstated two more dismissed lawsuits against manufacturers. In a Los Angeles case, Glock is being sued for one of their guns being used by Buford Furrow to kill a postal worker and wound three children. That gun was originally sold to a police department, which sold it to a licensed dealer, who sold it to a collector, who sold it to Furrow. UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh quipped, “According to the Ninth Circuit, Glock has to dictate to the police how to handle [gun sales], because they would know better than the police how to prevent crime.” The other case attempts to hold Beretta liable for a Berkeley teenager’s death because its loaded-chamber indicator “didn’t make it obvious” that the gun was loaded. Anti-gun organizations have long criticized the companies which, unlike Beretta, do not make guns with the small pins and levers which indicate to the knowledgeable that a round is chambered. Firearms experts respond that if someone doesn’t know enough not to point a gun at someone and pull the trigger, no warning device will mean anything to such an idiot. The 5-4 Supreme Court decision upholding all major provisions of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act shocked all sides. The ruling means that strict limits on what an organization such as NRA or AARP can say in political advertising near an election will remain in effect. It was widely expected by supporters and opposition alike that the court would strike down much of the regulation’s language.
Ohio Gov. Bob Taft has said he will veto the watered down bill that finally passed the state legislature after months of trying to respond to his various complaints about the bill. They gave him virtually everything he wanted so much that many defenders of gun rights oppose or are neutral on the bill but that wasn’t enough for Taft. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays,
Everyone. |
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