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Time’s Up for the NRA: New York: dissolve or monitor the NRA now

Introduction
In March 2018 the NRA issued a threatening video they called ‘Time’s Up’, mocking the Time’s Up movement.  In the video they threatened anyone who stood against their aims, calling them ‘unpatriotic’ and ‘unAmerican’.  But the shocking truth is now out:  when the NRA made that video, they had already been a Russian asset for years. 

It’s hard to summarize all of the recent bad news the NRA has happily experienced lately.  There is infighting, resignations at top level, lawsuits, the end of NRA-TV.  But a game-changing newly-released Senate Finance committee minority report concludes the NRA enabled Russian agents in undermining our democracy.  The report also said NRA members tried to enrich their private interests contrary to its tax-exempt status.  It is time to pull out all the stops and do everything we can to bring it down while it is in a very weakened condition.

We will take several actions in the next week against the NRA, starting with Action 1, to demand New York State uses powers it has over the NRA.

Action 1:  Attack the NRA through its New York company
The NRA is registered in New York State, and as an article in The Trace earlier this year reports, that means the state’s attorney general can take powerful actions now that the NRA has clearly been shown in violation of its tax-exempt status.

New York’s attorney general can dissolve the NRA outright (which would be fantastic but which is unrealistic – this has rarely been done).  The state can get inside the NRA and monitor it from within (which the NRA would absolutely hate), and it can remove board and staff members (but with so many coming and going at present, it might not make much difference).

We will ask New York State’s Attorney General to immediately monitor the NRA from inside – this is more than likely to uncover further issues related to the Senate committee’s report.  We will also recommend she considers dissolving the Russian-aiding entity.

To repeat, this is only one of a number of anti-NRA actions we will take this week; the more who take these actions and share them, the more effective they will be.  This could definitely be the end for the NRA – if everyone keeps the pressure on.

ACTION:

Please contact New York State’s Attorney General Letitia James through one of the channels below and give her the following message, personalized to your liking:

Dear Ms James

The newly-released Senate Committee on Finance Staff Minority Report on the NRA has revealed extremely shocking evidence warranting your action.  I write to respectfully ask you to move to appoint a receiver to oversee the group’s operations, and for you to consider dissolving it outright.

Additionally with the report highlighting how NRA members travelled to Russia to further their own personal ends, even meeting with sanctioned people, there is no way the NRA should retain a tax-exempt status.  

I hope you will do what so clearly needs to be done in light of the damning report; I would be grateful if you can reply to me.

If you are a NY resident, please also add that to your message to Letitia James.

Suggested Tweet:  @NewYorkStateAG I respectfully request you urgently appoint a receiver to monitor the disgraced NRA.  Ideally I want to see it dissolved following the damning Senate Committee report https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=6432520-The-NRA-Russia-How-a-Tax-Exempt-Organization . Something must be done now and the NRA must lose tax-exempt status too

 

Once you have made contact, fill out the three fields below and click the orange banner to report taking action!

 

Email: (form) https://ag.ny.gov/contact-attorney-general-letitia-james

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/newyorkstateag/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/NewYorkStateAG

 

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Tell the NRA you support groups, companies that are standing up to them

12 September 2019

Gun law campaign groups and some of America’s biggest businesses are taking action against the NRA.

A coalition of several gun-law reform groups has sent a letter to US businesses demanding they halt all support for the National Rifle Association.

The coalition, which helped pressurize Walmart into stopping the sales of ammunition in its stores, said Walmart’s actions should accelerate corporate America’s march toward gun safety in the absence of congressional action.

NBC reported the group’s spokesperson as saying:  “Walmart’s actions established a higher standard for corporate responsibility in the gun reform arena and we’re glad Kroger, Walgreens, Wegmans and CVS have also moved in the right direction. But we believe that every major American employer has a moral and patriotic duty to go even further.”

In other developments, hundreds of Chief Executive Officers of some of America’s biggest companies sent a joint letter to Congress today, demanding they act on reforming gun laws.

The senate majority leader, Republican Mitch McConnell has been sitting on bills geared to save lives since February:  during the months from February (when the bills came up) to now, America has seen gun massacres in several states.  He refused calls to reconvene the senate from recess early to deal with the tragedies at El Paso and Odessa.  McConnell is said to be taking a very undemocratic stance and is quoted as saying he will not put forward any bill the president will not sign.  Trump in the mean time changes his stance on gun law reform frequently.

Signatories of this letter include Levi Strauss, Airbnb, Pinterest, and Lyft; Apple, Facebook, and Google are among the notable absences from the list according to the Daily Beast.

Companies that have already taken a stance according to NBC include:

Citigroup – has set restrictions on the sale of firearms by its business customers;

Allied and North American van lines – stopped discounts for NRA members;

First National Bank of Omaha – will  not renew a contract with the NRA to issue a branded Visa card.

Enterprise Holdings Inc. – ending discounts for NRA members

ACTION:

Please contact the National Rifle Association through one of the channels below and give them the following message, personalized to your liking:

 

It is with absolute pleasure that I watch as one leading company after another distances itself from you and is demanding Congress reform America’s broken gun laws.

I would like to know why you think your interpretation of the 2nd Amendment should include automatic and semi-automatic weapons – and why you think a single life is less important than your self-serving, financially-profitable dogma.

It would be great if you replied, but whether or not you do, I want you to know that I will never vote for an NRA-funded candidate, and I will be doing as much business as possible with the businesses and services that are standing up to you.

-OR-

For Twitter:

@NRA It is a pleasure to watch as 1 leading company after another distances itself from the @NRA and is demanding Congress reform America’s broken gun laws. I will never vote for an NRA-funded candidate, and I will do business with the companies standing up to you

 NRA

Phone:  (800) 672-3888

Email:  (form) https://contact.nra.org/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/NRA/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/NRA

 

Once you have made contact, fill out the three fields below and click the orange banner to report taking action!

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Tell Texas Governor he’s responsible for future Texas gun deaths

1 September 2019 – Last year, 2,490 Texans died due to gun incidents; the 2019 toll still rises.  Today, Governor Abbott signed a raft of ten bills that is guaranteed to make that number rise even higher.  This is against the backdrop of the very recent El Paso and Odessa gun massacres.

Governor Abbott said at the 2018 Dallas NRA convention: “The problem is not guns, it’s hearts without God.”  The problem is guns, ammunition, and the big money pushing out a pro-gun message via paid-for politician.

It’s a bit complicated figuring out what lobbyists, industries, individuals and charities have contributed to Abbott’s eye-watering $78 million campaign war chest,  but when he ran for governor in 2014, he got the NRA’s blessing and its ‘A’ rating.

He won’t face re-election until 2022, but he already raised $12 million for the campaign:  in a two-week period.

Texas needs a leader who is not in the NRA pocket and who will address the gun epidemic in Texas.  Abbott is currently making a big deal of a new initiative that will increase reporting of ‘suspicious activity’.  What he did before that was to make it impossible for churches and schools to ban guns, allow people to have guns in the streets during states of emergency (can you imagine the carnage?) and more – see here for details of the ten gun-law loosening bills he approved.   

ACTION

Please contact Governor Abbott through one of the channels below and give him the following message, personalized to your liking:

 

I feel sick to see you signed ten bills which further loosen gun laws in Texas. Knowing you did this in the wake of the recent gun massacres makes it all the worse.

I know that your campaign gets millions of dollars from a variety of sources; I know that you have an A rating from the NRA, and I know that you don’t come up for re-election until 2022.

But what I want you to know is that for every future gun death  in Texas that might have been avoided if you had acted differently, I hold you personally, morally responsible.

San Francisco has rightly deemed the NRA to be a terrorist organisation.  Its spokespeople have called for Democrats to be shot and journalists to be killed – specifically curb-stomped.  And you are proud to sign laws they endorse.

I am ashamed that someone like you holds office, and I will do my best to ensure anyone I know in Texas votes against you when they can.  I will certainly be avoiding those that fund you and/or donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to your inaugural party – such a HEB and AT&T.

You once said that ‘hearts without god’ are what causes gun violence.  Easily-available guns and ammunition are what cause gun violence:  and NRA-subservient politicians such as you.

I don’t think there is any remote chance you will rescind those ten laws – but you should.  Your new ‘suspicious activities’ programme does remotely exonerate you for the future deaths those ten bills will facilitate.

I will be watching developments in Texas closely.  Each time there is a further massacre, I’ll hold you responsible and will message you to remind you what you’ve done.  

Once you have made contact, fill out the three fields below and click the orange banner to report taking action!

 

Phone:  (512) 463-2000

Email: (form) https://gov.texas.gov/contact

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/TexasGovernor/
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/GovAbbott

 

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Take the NRA Survey and tell them how you feel

August 2019 – The National Rifle Association has a new survey, which seems more like a PR exercise and fundraiser – you are asked to donate after taking it.

The questions are of course loaded and not balanced as you would expect from the pro-gun lobbyists.

For instance the survey asks “Do you agree that law-abiding citizens should be forced to submit to mandatory gun registration or else forfeit their guns and their freedom?” – the NRA equates its false interpretation of the Second Amendment (they always ignore the ‘well-regulated militia’ portion of the amendment).

Why wouldn’t a law-biding citizen want their gun registered?  Is it against freedom then that people need to register their cars?

ACTION

Let us tell the NRA what we think of them and their survey.

Follow this link and answer their questions:  https://membersurvey.nra.org/2ASurvey/Survey3 .

One Pulse for America will not tell you how to answer them, but as a member of the group, we know you will tell the NRA you want guns registered and semi-automatic weapons off our streets.

Once you have made contact, fill out the three fields below and click the orange banner to report taking action!

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Thureon smuggling case means time to examine NRA

1 July 2019 – A Wisconsin gun manufacturer and retailer pleaded guilty to illegally smuggling automatic weapons to Australia for years, putting paid to the NRA myth that gun manufacturers are ‘responsible’ people.

Andy Lloyd Huebschmann of New Holstein pleaded guilty  to sending an Australian dealer pistols, rifles and rifle parts to convert semi-automatic guns into fully automatic weapons.

Semi-automatic and automatic weapons are banned in Australia.  Thureon showed no respect for federal or international law. The NRA may perpetually say: ‘If guns were outlawed, only outlaws would have guns,’  but in this case outlaws were smuggling guns to outlaws.   The question is – how connected to the NRA is Thureon?  In the absence of any NRA statement condemning the smuggling, it is time for Congress to ask questions.  

Sophie Carson of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote:  “Huebschmann … met Paul Munro of Australia at a Las Vegas gun trade show about seven years ago and Munro persuaded him to ship him Thureon guns under the radar… Munro has been sentenced to 10 years in Australian prison for his role in the scheme… Officials at his sentencing hearing said dozens of Thureon-imported guns, including some fully automatic weapons, remained on Australian streets.

“In one shipment Munro paid $1,000 for each rifle kit and $2,000 for a pack of pistol slides and frames. Australian news outlets report he, in turn, sold the rifles for $15,000 each and the pistols for $5,000 a piece.”

In a Youtube video, a Thureon representative brags one of their weapons will ‘give you a minimum of five rounds if you so much as touch the trigger’.  Hardly the behaviour of a responsible manufacturer/retailer.  Such a claim seems more like a call to mass shooters than to someone who wants to defend their home or to hunt.

Thureon attended at least one NRA convention in 2014, while the smuggling operation was likely to have been running.  Despite its multi-million dollar resources, the NRA failed to spot it was giving exhibition space to a long-term smuggler.  Was it an an NRA event the two parties guilty of smuggling met?  Perhaps the NRA doesn’t want to know?  According to several articles including a piece in Finances Online, support from gun manufacturers earns the NRA tens of millions per year.

ANdy Huebschmann facebook post mindset of a smuggler

The NRA demonstrated it had no proper due diligence and scrutiny when it happily associated with Russian spies and took Russian funds.   It is not known – yet – whether Thureon donated to the NRA, but it  attended NRA conventions and gave away costly guns as prizes.  Could the NRA, doing some basic checks, have determined there were issues?  Do they scrutinize members and donors at all?  Since it seems they are not going to upset their funding sources, however dubious those sources may be, it is time for Congress to step in and fully investigate – and at the same time finally end the pretense the NRA is in any way a charity deserving tax breaks.

 

ACTION

Please contact your senator and/or representative through the U.S. Capitol Hotline at (202) 224-3121 or find their email addresses by visiting www.senate.gov, and give them the following message, personalized to your liking:

I am absolutely outraged to find a gun manufacturer, Thureon, was able to smuggle guns, automatic weapons, and kits for automatics for years to Australia, a country seeking to avoid gun massacres.  How did this go undetected for so long?

The smugglers attended at least one NRA convention, and I believe the public needs to know whether Thureon were NRA donors.  If the NRA is about responsible gun ownership and sales, and if they rely on law to justify their existence and have tax-free status, then surely they have a duty to try to check that all their affiliates and donors are compliant with laws both national and international.

Since they have failed consistently in this basic duty, not least over the Russian donation and spy scandal, I am calling on you to act. 

This serious case highlights the need for external scrutiny of the NRA’s funding, and a re-examination of its tax-exempt status.  I want questions asked in Congress and a committee organised to investigate all the ramifications this story carries:  Was Thureon an NRA donor, and what links exist between the two organisations?  Does the NRA carry out any due diligence on its donors, and if so, should it not be more robust given this story? 

Considering the amount of money it is taking from manufacturers like Thureon, is the NRA deserving of tax-exempt status – or is it simply a lobbying business funded by coordinated, for-profit businesses to further their aims while hiding behind a ‘charitable’ and  ‘educational’ veneer?

I know NRA-funded congresspeople will fight to avoid the NRA facing scrutiny – but it’s time the NRA is finally called out, publicly scrutinized, and for its tax-free days to end.  

After you contact your senator, click the orange banner at the top of this page to report your action!