The legal sector has more than its fair share of oddities, some of them humorous.
Sure, there are jokes about lawyers, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the bizarre number of frivolous lawsuits and strange lawsuits.
And some of them are so unbelievable that if you didn’t see it in writing, you’d be tempted to think that it was just a weird joke.
Today’s story is one of those last types of lawsuits. It’s one that, frankly, I would have never seen coming.
Why?
Because it’s the National Rifle Association suing… itself?
Yes, really. Sort of. Michael Clements writes,
The National Rifle Association (NRA) has sued its nonprofit arm, the NRA Foundation, alleging that it’s being used by disgruntled former NRA board members attempting to take control of the NRA.
The foundation was formed in 1990 to fund the gun rights organization’s educational and charitable work.
According to the lawsuit filed in the District Court for the District of Columbia on Jan. 5, “the Foundation has been seized by a disgruntled faction of former NRA directors who lost control of the NRA’s Board.”
The foundation had become “adversarial” in its relationship with the NRA, according to a statement announcing the lawsuit.
It’s the kind of weird and unexpected adversarial situation that we used to see on daytime TV talk shows (and that may still show on TV. I don’t watch TV much anymore to know if they are).
You know the types of shows where two sisters are dating the same guy and have gotten into arguments leading to one ramming the other’s vehicle in the driveway which then devolved into a knock down, drag out fight ending in both of them spending the night in jail because police had to be called to separate them.
And now they’re going to talk it out on national television.
(I’ve never understood why anyone would have that conversation in public like that.)
Sure, I’m being silly and over the top about how I’m describing this, but it really is oddball to see one part of the NRA sue another part of the NRA because there is a continued fight over who gets to run the organization.
As amusing as all of this is (or would be if it were a TV talk show), if the NRA would just stop their feuding and get back to refocusing on educating people on firearm safety and gun rights, we’d all appreciate it.
The Foundation has always been separate from, but working to raise funds for, the NRA itself. It still acts as though it is raising money for the NRA proper, but because it seems to be remaining loyal to the old Wayne LaPierre run NRA, it no longer provides the funds it raises to the actual NRA. Yet it continues to use the NRA’s name and act as though it is still supporting them. This is essentially flying under false colors and deceiving the public.
The NRA itself has reorganized, elected a mostly new Board and new Directors, and is moving on with the widespread concurrence of most of its members.
The rift between the NRA itself and the Foundation has apparently occurred because the Foundation disagrees with the NRA itself changing direction and emphasis in the post- LaPierre era. Thus, they no longer fulfill their stated mission of raising funds for NRA programs, and have been intractable when the NRA Directors tried to get them to resume funding new NRA programs. That’s the reason for the lawsuit.
Stories like this are why I’m no longer a member of the NRA. Instead of infighting why aren’t they suing states for their unconstitutional gun laws? There are a lot of 2A organizations out there that do go to court to overturn unconstitutional laws and I joined some of them. The NRA seems rather impotent right now!