The Big Dog Gun Site
Home

|| Ballot Measure 5 ||
|| John McCain || Don't Vote Like a Gun Owner ||
|| The Constitution Of The United State || The Second Amendment ||
|| 1st Amendment || The Fifth Amendment ||
|| U.S. Senator Diane ||

|| Home || Firearms Links ||
|| My Remington PSS || Remington PSS Letter ||

|| Am I The NRA || NRA Board Turmoil ||
|| The National Rifle Association of America ||

|| Rosie O'Donnell || Gun Control What does it mean? ||
|| Racist Roots of Gun Control || Truth Vs Myth || The Smart Gun Misnomer ||
|| Gun Control "Nice Phrase" ||

NRA Board Director Russ Howard Resigns

August 12, 1997 

Mrs. Marion Hammer
President, The National Rifle Association of America

Dear President Hammer:

Being nominated and elected to serve on the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association was a great honor. Like most Directors, I've spent much of my life laboring for freedom and the right to keep and bear arms; rights our Founding Fathers tried to guarantee by the 2nd Amendment, and which I forever hold dear.

Nonetheless, events of the past year have forced me to reassess my long-standing affiliation with the NRA. Over the years, as we've continued losing our rights in California and elsewhere, activists have wondered why NRA is not more effective given the passionate belief in the right to arms held by NRA members, a large segment of the American public, and, presumably, the NRA Board. Like most, I believed this could be accounted for by relatively benign factors such as institutional paralysis, bureaucratic incompetence, turf-protection, and the not-invented-here syndrome. I now know otherwise. Those factors are not insignificant, though there are many hard-working, competent people working for NRA. Rather, as I've learned, NRA's ineffectiveness largely springs from an unholy alliance between NRA's senior paid staff (including you and other Board Members with undisclosed conflicts of interest), some of the vendors NRA does business with, and elements of the Republican Party, all with the acquiescence of a Board which has long shirked its moral and fiduciary duties. Many members have suggested that there is anti-gun or other infiltration at play. While such a cancer would not be inconsistent with the symptoms, I've seen no direct evidence of it.

NRA has been bled by some of its vendors and their self-serving advice. The lack of competitive bidding makes the US Government look responsible by comparison. The PR firm used by NRA, Tony Makris' Ackerman-McQueen/Mercury Group, is an example. They've been with NRA for some 20 years, and recently had an $80,000-a-month basic retainer proposal on the table. Few companies would keep a PR firm that long, let alone one that would help senior staff wage war on Board Members. One of the leverage strategies used by "Ak-Mac" is to spend millions of NRA's dollars turning NRA officers into celebrities, who in turn protect Ak-Mac. Hence your effort to keep the management audit away from Ak-Mac even before it started.

Those who question the Ak-Mac status quo are subjected to the vilest of personal attacks. For example, when former President Tom Washington wanted to look at your finances, and Ak-Mac's, he was smeared. Apparently, Charleton Heston, NRA's new 1st VP, neither requests nor receives compensation from NRA. But it's well known that he works with NRA through Tony Makris/Ak-Mac/Mercury and that much of their pay is for making him available to NRA. When they're threatened they play the Heston card. For example, as you know, Mr. Heston threatened to resign from NRA unless Chief Kayne Robinson was elected 2nd VP in Dallas. Though Mr. Heston is probably sincerely acting on misinformation spoon fed to him by Mr. Makris and others, the threat to Ak-Mac is the real reason Mr. Heston was ushered in, not fear of "extremists."

A strange hypocrisy drenched the interviews in the wake of his coronation. The same Charleton Heston so fond of clenching a gun and uttering the ominous threat to law enforcement officers, "from my cold dead hands," touted the virtues of "mainstream" over so-called "extremist" gun owners, later following up with sound bites like "AK-47s are entirely inappropriate for civilian ownership". In Seattle, he was flanked on one side by Director Sandra Froman, a one-time cover-girl for Machine Gun News who refers to her machine guns as "my babies." He was also flanked by Director Manny Fernandez, who pleaded guilty in the face of illegal machine gun possession charges. I have no problem with machine guns; they're within the intent of the 2nd Amendment. But I've never owned one, nor have I endorsed killing police officers who come to confiscate our guns, should it ever come to that. The only thing I've advocated is political action. So who are the "extremists" here? You pushed Mr. Heston for 1st VP and Mr. Fernandez for the nominating committee, and kept Ms. Froman in charge of grassroots, hardly because they're "moderates," rather because they were part of your coup de etat.

By labeling former 1st VP Neal Knox and the reform camp "extremists," you and your fellow Machine Gun Moderates rendered less viable some of the core 2nd Amendment beliefs held by Mr. Knox and the reform camp - beliefs you supposedly hold. If indeed you hold them, then you trashed your own beliefs for personal gain. How many Directors and others with a hand in your coup de etat have personal, financial, or political conflicts of interest? How many are directly or indirectly getting paid by NRA?

As for the role of neo-conservative and Republican elements in this unholy alliance, it's easy to understand why they protect NRA's failed leadership: They want our money, our A-ratings, our endorsements, and our grassroots support, but they don't want to make the tough votes required to earn them. So they applaud Wayne LaPierre's "mainstream" positions like federally mandated instacheck - the same Wayne LaPierre who himself was widely denounced as an extremist for referring to federal officers as "jackbooted thugs"! Writer David Brock, admitted repentant political hit man for the right, made it clear that protecting the Republican Party was a prime motive for his American Spectator piece which smeared the NRA reform camp (note that letters to the Spectator exposing the smear were never printed - so much for accuracy and fairness in the neo-con media). That's why NRA leaders are so opposed to putting an end to ILA's penchant for giving A ratings to legislators who vote for gun control. Republican politicos were mobilized out of fear that straw man Neal Knox and other reform-minded Directors would end their free ride. Never mind that NRA would be far more effective once it was no longer married to one party and began seriously enticing Democrats and disciplining sellout Republicans. Your word was given in September, 1996 that the motion to stop ILA from giving A's to legislators who trample on gun rights would come before the Board for a vote in May. It did not, but you publicly committed in May to bring it up in September. You've frequently broken your word before, and I expect you'll break it this time. I urge Directors to hold you to it and pass the motion.

Like others, I got heavily involved in 1989 largely because NRA had effectively abandoned California. A focused five-year struggle ended with the political demise of our two highest-profile gun grabbers, setting an example for other legislators that dammed up the torrent for three years. But such examples don't last forever. Legislators forget, especially when they see NRA leadership attempting to destroy those who set the example, and NRA never followed up with the no-compromise dealing, serious organizing, and contingency planning we'd hoped for. So we're back where we were in 1989, only worse. A slate of anti-gun-rights bills is moving that makes Roos-Roberti look tame. As generally happens with California gun control laws, if any of these bills pass, the enemy will be emboldened and rights will be threatened across the country.

And yet, NRA is once again running from California. Mr. Heston's candidacy was sold to members on the promise that he could open any political door, yet he apparently hasn't lifted a finger to save his home state (by contrast, Neal Knox, a Maryland resident, flew to Sacramento with some activists who had asked for his help, including former Roberti Recall Chair Bill Dominguez and Santa Barbara NRA Members Council President Larry Rankin). When asked what the plan to save California was, Tanya Metaksa, Executive Director of NRA's Institute for Legislative Action, said "we're looking for one." I believe NRA leadership has decided to sell out on the "assault weapon" issue, and is preparing to sell out California, as quietly as possible to preserve the "Winning Team" fiction. A high-profile defense has the potential downside of a high-profile loss - unacceptable for an ILA that blows members' money to shower them with glossy 4-page "ILA Victory" brochures touting ILA's "success rates." Like a district attorney who excessively plea bargains to maintain a high conviction rate, ILA's statistics are bolstered by supporting anti-gun candidates, pushing unnecessarily compromised legislation, and ignoring legislative losses. The pattern is unsettling: Giving A's to legislators who voted for the assault weapon ban then pushing a go-nowhere vote to pacify members; Mr. Heston's attacks on Ak-47s and so-called "extremists," and his failure to act in his home state; ILA's pressuring of grassroots into fundraising and NRA Board politics when they should be focused on action; the non-plan for California. But perhaps Mr. Heston will make a cameo appearance after all. Perhaps he's waiting for bills to reach the governor, then he'll ask for a veto. It's never worked before with this or any other Republican governor here, despite all the free money, endorsements, and support we give Republicans. We'll see.

The unholy alliance of NRA leaders, vendors, and Republican elements is the reason why NRA is declining in stature. It was used by you, President Hammer, and by others in leadership, to protect the status quo, and with it your power, positions and financial self-dealing from reform. To hide your unwholesome goals, motives, and tactics, you preemptively accused others of having them - a page out of the Clinton-Goebbels-Lenin play books and a transparently hypocritical ploy you've long put to great use. Your coconspirators accused Neal Knox of attempting a coup de etat and a corporate takeover. The only corporate takeover I know of was by Ak-Mac, which can write its own ticket now: They have you, 1st VP Heston, 2nd VP Robinson, EVP LaPierre, and others, all in place and in pocket. Mr. Knox and other reformers were accused of wanting jobs, diverting attention from the fact that many Directors had personal, financial, and political incentives to preserve the status quo (e.g., your undisclosed $10,000 a month; how much is it now?) Mr. Knox was also accused of using Machiavellian tactics to control the Board. If that were true, your "Winning Team" wouldn't be in power today. Fact is, Mr. Knox used his influence to help get the "Winning Team" and most of its supporters onto the Board and into the positions they used to betray him. And, as you know too well, Machiavelli would never have allowed your coup to succeed. Compared to Mr. Knox's influence, you run the Board like a concentration camp commandant, trying to break prisoners by taking away their privileges. For starters, those who opposed the status quo generally got a powerless committee assignment or none at all. And Neal Knox has never stooped to the kind of lying smear campaign which your "Winning Team" so zealously carried out.

As you know, in just one year you've appointed 3 Finance Committee Chairs. Rick Carone, one of the two most qualified chairs in NRA's history, resigned because of the Board's unwillingness to deal with you. Then you fired Donna Bianchi for exercising her conscience and running against Wayne LaPierre's mismanagement. Now we have Mr. Sigler, who with all due respect, is unqualified for the position compared to his predecessors - including former Coors Chief Max Goodwin - all of whom sounded the alarm on NRA's financial position ($50 million in the red, $300 million spent without proper authorization, D credit rating, unqualified management, etc., etc., etc.). As to the rest of the Committee, you replaced most of the experienced members with generally unqualified people (one publicly admitted she knows nothing about finance), increasing the Board's liability. Considering that the Finance Committee has a lot of power, small wonder why you're now making more appointments based on cronyism and political allegiance rather than ability.

Then we have Sue King as Chair of the Ethics Committee: the fox in charge of the hen house. I have first hand knowledge of her involvement in the smear campaign. She violated her oath and the Board's trust by libeling me after I had answered questions about my FPPC case in the confidence of executive session. If anyone's unethical it's Sue King. Likewise, Ms. King's control of publications is shockingly without merit and appears to be for the sole purpose of consolidating power by controlling future Board elections through the magazines. That is, unless you're giving her credit for something the rest of us don't know about. The vicious (and, of course, anonymous) "COUP DE ETAT NEWS," perhaps?

Jeff Cooper is one of the most renowned firearms instructors in the world. Your bizarre purge of Mr. Cooper from Education and Training proves that the "Winning Team" put its coup de etat, and the indulgence of your petty vindictiveness, ahead of the good of the NRA. Is Mr. Cooper an extremist? Accomplished instructors TJ Johnston and Leroy Pyle were also purged. By acquiescing to your whimsical purge of the most qualified committee members, by general inaction, and through bad faith, Board Members are putting their personal assets at risk to lawsuits, as malfeasance, misfeasance and dereliction of duty are reportedly not covered by NRA's Director insurance, which is nominal in any case compared to the potential claims.

Looking back, ignorance was bliss. I wish I didn't know what I know today. Not that ignorance is an excuse. But with graduate degrees from UCLA specializing in economics, finance, and accounting, a decade in the financial industry, and my participation in an internal study of NRA finances, I could hardly claim ignorance of the financial atrocities committed by NRA leaders with members money and the consent of an irresponsible board. NRA's liabilities are dreadful, and I cannot stand by while Officers and past Presidents explain away NRA's moral obligations to its members. Quoting Wayne Stump's resignation earlier this year - "the Board did nothing." At least I tried, as did others, to perform my fiduciary duty. But I can tell you it's no fun being sued for a large amount of money, even if you think you're in the right. I've enough liability on my plate to last a lifetime. I'm not taking on any more, certainly not for an institution corrupted by its own power and money.

When a minority of the Board tried to exercise their moral and fiduciary duty to the members, they were not answered by a reasoned defense of NRA's leadership. The response by staff officers, vendors, neo-cons, and certain Board members, was to create a smokescreen by smearing those Directors who had been tasked by the Board to conduct a special review of NRA finances and management. By tolerating, encouraging, and participating in the smear, you have irrevocably lowered the standards of the Board. Any Director is now fair game, even those who deemed themselves non-aligned in the recent conflict. I urge them to prepare themselves. It's hard to convey a true feeling for what it's like to see fabricated stories told about yourself in a national magazine, then see ILA immediately hire - as an apparent pay-off - those who smeared you (e.g., Paul Pain). That's how much top staff thinks of the Board. The old saw that NRA eats its young came only too true in my case. In under a month I went from a standing ovation by the Board to the realization of how expendable I was in the "Winning Team's" power game, even after the bullets I took for them and the cause.

The struggle for the right of the people to keep and bear arms is at the core of a fundamental struggle for freedom that began in ancient times and will surely persist into the distant ages to come. This struggle is political, though it has not always been. Like diplomacy, the politics of such a struggle is an extension of war by other means, though perhaps further removed. In any conflict, if those on the front lines cannot trust and rely on the honor of their comrades, the cause is doomed. While there are many good and honorable people on the Board with various stands on the current power struggle, there are some who cannot be trusted and are without honor. The most recent proof of this is your own slander, telling Board members that I cashed my management review consulting check and left 1st Union Bank with hundred dollar bills stuffed in my pockets. In fact, on the advice of Judge Paul Heath Till, I wired the money to California so I could avoid the clearing delay (and the risk of a stop payment - that's right, I don't trust you), and pay my attorney who faced a hearing just days later. But then you knew that, of course. Just another in your long string of lies.

President Hammer, with victory under your belt and ruthless consolidation of power underway, with control of the magazines and millions in image-building expenditures to keep members barraged with fairy tales, and with NRA's powerful lobbying and PR cannons now turned on many of those who helped build them, I'm sure you're confident of a place in the constellation of NRA leaders. History, on the other hand, favors the truth.

I got into this cause 20 years ago to do my part for my country because I never had to go to war, unlike my father, Rick Carone, General Foss, Col. Brown, Jeff Cooper, Wes Grogan, Jerry Allen, Jim Fotis, Jim Land, Bob Kramer, and many others who risked the ultimate price for our freedom. I'd like to continue to serve, but for many reasons I simply cannot. I took my Board position seriously. Members trusted me and I repaid them by performing my moral and fiduciary duty. Even in better times an NRA without major problems would require a major commitment from a diligent Director. But considering the shape NRA is in, the "Winning Team's" eagerness to destroy the reputations of Directors who perform their fiduciary duty and refuse to tow your party line, the oppression of the FPPC, and other factors, it is all-consuming. I paid my dues and then some. My conscience is clear. As of today, the voluntary portion of my tour of political duty for NRA is over. I hereby resign from the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association.

Sincerely,



C. Russell Howard

cc: T. Makris, Chairman
1st Vice President C. Heston
NRA Secretary J. Land
The Board of Directors 
2nd Vice President K. Robinson

|| Ballot Measure 5 ||
|| John McCain || Don't Vote Like a Gun Owner ||
|| The Constitution Of The United State || The Second Amendment ||
|| 1st Amendment || The Fifth Amendment ||
|| U.S. Senator Diane ||

|| Home || Firearms Links ||
|| My Remington PSS || Remington PSS Letter ||

|| Am I The NRA || NRA Board Turmoil ||
|| The National Rifle Association of America ||

|| Rosie O'Donnell || Gun Control What does it mean? ||
|| Racist Roots of Gun Control || Truth Vs Myth || The Smart Gun Misnomer ||
|| Gun Control "Nice Phrase" ||

E-mail the Web Master
 If you have any comments or information or want to know more about Guns or The Second Amendment. . . .

This page was last updated on
Monday, October 23, 2000 14:41
Viewer Number

The Big Dog Gun Site
http://www.alphadogweb.com/firearms