The New York Attorney General is suing the NRA, seeking to dissolve the organization completely.
I'm torn on this. I love guns and gun rights. A lot. But the NRA can go fuck itself.
This is for many reasons. I'm fairly convinced that the NRA is currently run primarily as a slush fund for the benefit of its executives and other connected parties. This New Yorker article from a year ago is fairly damning. I also have noticed its re-alignment since Trump was elected. I've been an NRA member off-and-on a few times before, but primarily because membership is required as some members-only gun ranges, so I've received their newsletters. The NRA basically transformed itself into a pro-Trump PAC. I don't mean this obliquely. I would get letters from the NRA that say something along the lines of "Trump has done great things for this country, help donate to keep America great again!" It's not the exact wording but that was the theme.
I don't believe that the NRA can go fuck itself because it is pro-Trump, that's not what I care about. But I don't see Trump as a 2A magnate, so the relationship is a bit bizarre to me. He seems to largely be riding the coattails of proxy association and off-hand comments at rallies. Because in terms of policy, the two things that come to mind the Trump administration has been responsible for:
Eliminating an Obama-era regulation that had automatically labelled any Social Security recipient who needed help with managing their finances as therefore by definition too mentally ill to legally possess a firearm.
Banning bump stocks nationwide by asking the ATF to re-interpret existing law.
Not a stellar record. But that hasn't stopped the NRA from fully committing themselves to Trump in their comms and in their publicity.
Further, they fucking suck as a gun rights organization from a principled standpoint. Imagine if a mayor of a town ordered a newspaper to shut down and the ACLU affiliate said nothing. The ACLU can go fuck itself then too. So when Philando Castile, or John Crawford III, or Tamir Rice get shot by government agents for just holding a gun, and the NRA stays silent? They have no business existing as a civil rights organization. When they do decide to speak their spokesperson goes out of their way to waft opprobrious shade on some of these victims of government violence by suggesting, for instance, that maybe it was Castile's fault for getting shot because he happened to have marijuana in his possession.
I think gun rights advocacy would be better served by getting rid of the NRA together.
At the same time, I know why the NY AG is going after this organization, and it has nothing to do with respecting the sanctity of 2A advocacy. They may have valid and legitimate reasons to prosecute a non-profit that is not behaving as a good steward of their assets, but the motivations here are not pure.