New York Attorney General lawsuit to dissolve the NRA
Letitia James, the Attorney General of the State of New York, filed a lawsuit to seek the dissolution of the National Rifle Association. And the NRA immediately counter-attacked!
The Democrats of NY State attack the NRA: a lawsuit based on alleged financial irregularities filed by the State AG Letitia James seeks to dissolve America's oldest civil rights organization!
Letitia James, the democrat Attorney General of the State of New York, announced the civil lawsuit on Thursday, August 6th
The information came last week like a blast: the State of New York is seeking to dissolve the NRA!!
Indeed, not even the US – the motherland of the Second Amendment – seems to be immune from crass misuse of justice for political purposes: Letitia James, the Attorney General of the State of New York, has filed a civil lawsuit at the New York Supreme Court seeking the dissolution of the National Rifle Association, America's oldest civil rights organization and the Country's main gun rights advocacy group.
Grounds for the lawsuit – which comes mere days after a similar complaint filed by the District of Columbia against the NRA itself – would apparently be found within the management of the NRA's funds by CEO Wayne LaPierre and other members of the board, which would have violated the NRA's non-profit status. According to AG James, « The NRA is fraught with fraud and abuse, which is why, today, we seek to dissolve the NRA.»
Facts or politics?
2020 is an election year, and the NRA is at the front line of the fight for gun rights
News of the lawsuit come mere months before the November 2020 presidential elections, which will see incumbent republican President Donald J. Trump pitted against democrat runner Joe Biden, who's been a member of the Senate since 1972 and was Vice-President under the Obama Administration.
The National Rifle Association is on the frontline for the battle for the White House, endorsing incumbent President Trump as democrat Biden announced on his official Facebook page that, if elected, he will seek to ban "assault weapons" – a generic term that was coined in 1989 by prominent gun control advocate Josh Sugarmann in an attempt to gain popular support for legal restrictions against a broad line of modern defensive, hunting and sporting rifles, carbines, shotguns and handguns which have close to nothing in common to the military firearms they're cosmetically patterned after.
The NRA has been under constant attack by political environments close to the gun control lobby for a few years now
Elected in 2018, Letitia James is a a democrat and a staunch opponent of the politics of the Trump Administration – reason why many believe that the roots for the lawsuit against the NRA may be more political than factual. It is a civil lawsuit to begin with – likely meaning that no elements were found that could justify a criminal prosecution, despide the controversial management of NRA funds being indeed a well recognized issue even among the members of the National Rifle Association itself.
In the past few years, left-wing groups and administrations and gun control advocacy groups have kept the NRA under constant attack: in 2018, elements within the State of New York itself – including Governor Andrew Cuomo– have initiated and instigated an economic boycott against the association that led to a lawsuit citing infringement of First Amendment rights, while the city of San Francisco declared the NRA to be a "terrorist organization" in September 2019.
The NY lawsuit comes just as democrat presidential runner Joe Biden announced that, if elected, he will seek to ban "assault weapons" – a.k.a. modern sporting firearms
The looming presence of the powerful anti-2A lobby behind the action of Attorney General Letitia James seems to be acknowledged by the gun control crowd itself: Everytown for Gun Safety – America's first and foremost gun control advocacy group, known for being heavily bankrolled by NY billionaire and Trump adversary Michael Bloomberg – has gleefully commented the news of Letitia James' lawsuit:
« The real cost of the NRA’s corruption isn't money; it's American lives [...] The NRA has peddled fear to sell more guns and fought lifesaving gun laws at every turn, doing everything in its power to preserve an America where gun violence is the rule, not the exception.»
Despite being long headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, the National Rifle Association has been chartered in the State of New York ever since its establishment in November 1871 – hence the NY AG jurisdiction. The NRA could very easily, quickly and legally make the case moot and kill the lawsuit by just moving its charter to another State.
NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre is facing an all-out struggle as voices from within the Association itself criticize his management of the org's funds
NRA's immediate counterattack
The NRA immediately filed a counter-suit, accusing NY AG James of abusing her position and harrassing the Association
Instead, the National Rifle Association decided to counterattack just mere hours after the lawsuit was announced, by filing a lengthy countersuit and accusing NY Attorney General Letitia James of abusing her power for political reasons – an abuse actively coordinated with NY State's democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo and with the aforementioned Everytown for Gun Safety.
Letitia James herself, while campaigning for her election to NY State AG back in 2018, refered to the NRA as a "terrorist organization" – just like the democrats in San Francisco – and this alone would be enough to postulate that her decision to initiate a legal action against the National Rifle Association was motivated more by politics than by the law.
Prominent researcher John R. Lott, Jr., on Newsweek, stated that the civil lawsuit against the NRA is nothing but a misuse of the judiciary system by the State of New York. And all of this, at a moment when gun sales in the US are soaring to unprecedented levels, due to the democrats' stance on gun control and the violent riots spreading across the Country – riots to which prominent members of the Democratic Party answered by supporting the protesters' demands to defund law enforcement agencies all over the United States.
With both the volumes of gun sales and NRA membership soaring all through the US, Letitia James' fully political attack against the NRA could backfire miserably
Many a factor, indeed, indicate that the political attack against the NRA has the potential to backfire disastrously against the authorities of the State of New York, the democrats, and the anti-gun lobby. Alan Gottlieb – founder of the Second Amendment Foundation and a staunch critic of the NRA's approach and Wayne LaPierre's leadership – has commented on the website Reason.com:
« There is no doubt both of these attorney generals are opponents of Second Amendment rights, and have an axe to grind [but] these are serious allegations that have not been put to bed by the leadership of the NRA over the last several years. Fortunately, for the gun rights movement, the strength of the NRA is not only in its leadership but in its members. Its members will not abandon the fight to protect Second Amendment rights.»
Issues aside, the NRA is still America's biggest gun rights organization, and the attack carried on by NY authorities is clearly political. Doubts also exist on whether or not the NRA could be forced to dissolve by a civil lawsuit. How is the ordeal going to unravel?