What was observed at the NRA Annual Meeting in Atlanta, 2025

Who would have thought a corrupt and racist New York Attorney General would have been the agent used by divine providence to effect the reform of the National Rifle Association? 

Neal Knox and his reformers nearly succeeded in taking over the NRA in the 1980′s and early 1990′s. Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War is a collection of writings by Neal, edited by his son Chris. The goal of Neal Knox and his organization was to make the NRA management and finances more transparent and to focus the NRA on being more effective politically. Those efforts were stymied by the “old guard” wielding power inside the NRA. It has been alleged the insiders saw the primary role of the NRA as a money raising machine to line their pockets.

NRA salaries and perks multiplied after the Knox reformers lost against NRA insiders. The insiders controlled the NRA magazines and the nominating committee for the Board of directors. 

After Neil Knox’ tragic death in 2005,  his son, Jeff Knox, continued to operate the Knox organization with attempts to reform the NRA and to bring transparency to the NRA finances.

Corrupt New York AG Letitia James filed a lawsuit against the NRA in 2020.  The purpose of the lawsuit was to dissolve the NRA. 

“The NRA’s influence has been so powerful that the organization went unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their own pockets,” said Attorney General James. “The NRA is fraught with fraud and abuse, which is why, today, we seek to dissolve the NRA, because no organization is above the law.”

Letitia James failed in her attempt to destroy the NRA. Instead, the oversight of the New York court was enough to allow reform candidates to be elected to the board of directors. Jeff Knox and reform candidates for the board won overwhelming support and four board seats in the 2024 NRA annual election. The four reformers received some of the highest vote totals. 

With the pressure and oversight of the New York court, the NRA reform group was able to put forward a nearly complete slate of reform candidates for the 2025 annual election. Ordinarily, 25 of 75 members of the board are up for elections. Because of the loss of some board members, 30 seats were available in 2025. The reformers won 20 of the 30 seats. They now have about 40 of 75 board members. It should be enough to enact the significant reforms to start rebuilding the NRA. The numbers are not exactly precise, because some existing board members joined the Reform group during this difficult time. Jeff Knox shows a good breakout of how the vote turned out. 

On reaching the Georgia World Congress Center on April 25, I was lobbied by old friends to vote for Charles T. Hiltunin III, to fill what is known as the 76th director slot, chosen by NRA voters at the annual meeting. 

Hiltunin, a reformer, was actively campaigning, as was Tom King, considered a member of the “old guard”.  I was pleasantly surprised to see the voting conducted well with a secret ballot and checking voting eligibility.  There were few votes cast in the race, considering the attendees numbered about 70,000. Hiltunin won with 389 votes to King’s 194 votes, out of a total of 824 votes.  241 votes were scattered among 15 other candidates. 

The overall tone of the membership was optimistic at the 2025 annual meeting of the NRA. It seemed the voices of the membership were being heard, in a real way, for the first time in decades. This correspondent noted women were roughly 25% of  the attendees, with about 5% children. There were significant numbers of minority groups present. 

Analysis:

The National Rifle Association has duties and responsibilities to manage national matches and target shooting programs. It has the most extensive firearms training programs in the country.  It is the hope of this correspondent the never ending push of fund raising will be toned down to a reasonable level. At some point, this correspondent simply put funding requests in the trash without reading them.

Because of disgust with how the internal affairs of the NRA were being managed, this correspondent stopped sending them money after the attempt at reform by Neal Knox failed. The current reform effort appears to be succeeding.  It is doubtful Letitia James ever thought her attempt to destroy the NRA would be the seed of reform and rejuvenation.

©2025 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

Source: http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2025/06/what-was-observed-at-nra-annual-meeting.html