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The Knox Update

Herrera for Congress: Let’s Go Brandon!!!

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Tombstone, Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)- Brandon Herrera, popular YouTube personality, gun designer, FFL, and all-around good guy, has declared his candidacy for Congress in the 23rd District of Texas, bringing a whole new energy to the popular phrase, “Let’s Go, Brandon!!!”

Texas 23 is a massive District covering a huge swath of West Texas, running from the Western side of San Antonio to Eastern El Paso, and South to include all of Big Bend National Park. It is one of the largest and least densely populated Congressional Districts in the country and has been something of a political football over the past several decades, with Republicans and Democrats actively working to Gerrymander the District to lock it up for their side.

Continue reading Herrera for Congress: Let’s Go Brandon!!! →

The Knox Update

Can the NRA be Saved? Open Call for Activist NRA Board Candidates!

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NRA Leadership Board of Directors
Open Call for Activist NRA Board Candidates!

Is it possible that the NRA will no longer exist by this time next year?

The New York Attorney General’s lawsuit is expected to go to trial in January of 2024 and last about a month. Possible outcomes include complete dissolution of the Association and sale of its assets and criminal prosecutions. More likely scenarios lean toward some form of ground-up restructuring, such as receivership, which would place the Association under the control of a court-appointed overseer.

It could well lead to the prosecution of (all-too-well) paid staff and officials from the President down to certain Board Members.

Meanwhile, about one-third of the current Board will stand for election in 2024. Nominating petitions can be turned in until November 7, 2023. It’s possible that the NRA will again file for bankruptcy prior to the trial, this time with some legitimacy. Bankruptcy could leave the Director elections in limbo. Then again, a judge might look to replace the deadwood on the old board with fresh, engaged members who want the best for the Association.

So, as the Titanic prepares to set sail, want to join the crew? The 2024 election of Directors might be moot. Then again, it might be an important turning point.

Continue reading Can the NRA be Saved? Open Call for Activist NRA Board Candidates! →

The Knox Update

Political Forces All Working to Silence Gun Rights Advocates

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NRAs Americas First Freedom magazine Silencing the NRA screen grab 7-25-2023
NRAs Americas First Freedom magazine Silencing the NRA screen grab 7-25-2023

Tombstone, Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)- NRA’s America’s First Freedom magazine for August 2023 featured stories on efforts to “Silence the NRA.”

They made a lot of good points, but there’s more to the story. Of course, in the NRA version, the New York Attorney General’s lawsuit against the NRA and four of its top executives is all just one facet of the wider political attacks on gun rights and gun owners. There is some truth to that position, but it is not the whole truth. Without question the NY AG Letitia James targeted the NRA for political reasons.

What the NRA article doesn’t mention though, is that when James and company started their politically-motivated investigation, they found very real, very serious problems with the way the Association had been doing business. Continue reading Political Forces All Working to Silence Gun Rights Advocates →

The Knox Update

David Dell’Aquila’s Tough Love Approach to NRA

NRA Contractors Money
David Dell’Aquila began looking closer at where his donations were actually going, and he began asking questions about how his and other members’ money was being spent.  iStock

Tombstone, Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)- NRA heavy-hitter donor and Wayne LaPierre critic David Dell’Aquila is back in court in his efforts to force major changes within the Association.

Dell’Aquila first filed his suit against the NRA, the NRA Foundation, and Wayne LaPierre back in 2019, shortly after revelations of widespread financial chicanery within the organization became public. Through a long trail of ups and downs, the lawsuit has lingered in the background for almost four years and came very close to dying on the vine on a couple of occasions, but each time, Dell’Aquila was able to keep it alive.

On Friday, June 30, 2023, Dell’Aquila and his co-plaintiffs, with new attorneys representing them, filed their Third Amended Complaint in the case. This complaint attempts to revive several Continue reading David Dell’Aquila’s Tough Love Approach to NRA →

The Knox Update

Yet Another Loss for the NRA & the Brewer Law Firm

Circular gun shot Bad Karma of Man iStock-leremy 847506336
iStock-leremy

Tombstone, Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)- Another swing and a miss for the NRA and their high-priced attorneys at the Brewer law firm, this time in a motion to intervene in a case brought by Ranier Arms and the Second Amendment Foundation. This is just the latest in a long line of expensive failures for the NRA’s very expensive attorneys.

A few weeks ago, the Firearms Policy Coalition won an injunction in the Federal Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to halt enforcement of the BATFE’s new rule on pistol stabilizing braces, but only for the plaintiffs in the case.

The new rule went into effect on June first and makes anyone still in possession of an AR-type pistol with a stabilizing brace attached after that date a felon unless they had previously filed paperwork to register the brace-equipped firearm as a Short-Barreled Rifle (SBR) under the National Firearms Act. Several groups and individuals had challenged the new rule in various lawsuits, Continue reading Yet Another Loss for the NRA & the Brewer Law Firm →

The Knox Update

NRA’s Impressive Record of Defeat

NRA members attend the annual meeting at a past convention. NRA gathers in Houston over the Labor Day weekend for its 150th anniversary. File Photo
NRA members attend the annual meeting at a past convention.  File Photo

U.S.A. — The National Rifle Association has received yet another judicial slap-down. Lead counsel Bill Brewer, along with attorneys for Wayne LaPierre, Secretary John Frazer, former Treasurer Woody Phillips, and former executive Josh Powell filed yet another raft of petitions calling for the suit to be dismissed or seriously throttled. In an order issued on June 8, the judge in the case rejected Continue reading NRA’s Impressive Record of Defeat →

The Knox Update

What if Your Child Were the Victim of a Mass Shooting?

Broken Heart iStock-Marta Nogueira 1245075062.jpg
iStock-Marta Nogueira

Tombstone, Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)- What if your child were the victim of a mass shooting?

Would the searing pain of that horror change your thinking on attempts to ban “assault weapons?” If it were your wife, mother, sister, or brother, who was killed at a grocery store? A movie theater? A beach? Would the gut-wrenching emotional trauma change your mind? Would you join Demanding Moms? Would you send money to Everytown for Gun Safety? Would you testify in Congress and state legislatures calling for more restrictions on “weapons of war” that “flood our streets?”

These are questions that are thrown at pro-rights advocates on a regular basis. Do you have answers for them? Or do you have “shall not be infringed” and a pile of statistics?

Personal stories are powerful. The pain and heartbreak of losing a loved one to senseless violence can move political mountains. It invokes an empathy response that can completely shift people’s thinking, drawing them into the pain and convincing them that “something” must be done.

That’s why our political opponents work so hard to recruit the families of victims with stories that will break the hardest hearts. Continue reading What if Your Child Were the Victim of a Mass Shooting? →

The Knox Update

Bump Stock Boondoggle, Don’t Blame Trump – Blame LaPierre

Trump Wayne LaPierre
President Trump and Wayne LaPierre. IMG NRA-ILA

Tombstone, Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)-

“As you know, the bump-stocks are actually a very unimportant thing, and NRA, I went with them, and they said, ‘it doesn’t mean anything, they’re actually, all they do is teach you how to shoot very inaccurately.’ So we did that.”  ~ Donald Trump, CNN Town Hall, May 10, 2023

“The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations.” ~ Joint statement of Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox, NRA, October 5, 2017

When Donald Trump pushed his Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to reclassify bump-stocks as “machineguns” under the National Firearms Act, he had the blessings of Wayne LaPierre and the NRA to do it – if not specifically, but definitely in principle. Continue reading Bump Stock Boondoggle, Don’t Blame Trump – Blame LaPierre →

The Knox Update

Auto Key-Card Case Ruling is a Travesty of Justice

Google Lightning Link Plans Image Search Return Results 4-25-2023
Google Lightning Link Plans Image Search Return Results 4-25-2023

Tombstone, Arizona – On Friday, April 21, 2023, Kristopher “Justin” Ervin and Mathew Hoover were found guilty on charges related to the selling of illegal machineguns, based on Ervin’s sales of credit card-sized pieces of 18 gauge stainless steel sheet with etchings of “Lightning Link” parts laser engraved on the front. Hoover advertised the cards on his YouTube channel called “CRS Firearms.” Continue reading Auto Key-Card Case Ruling is a Travesty of Justice →

The Knox Update

Once More Into the Breach: Trying to Save the NRA

Jeff Knox addresses NRA members during 2023 Annual Meeting. (Photo credit: John Richardson)
Jeff Knox addresses NRA members during 2023 Annual Meeting.
(Photo credit: John Richardson)

Tombstone, Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)- As I do almost every year, I once again made the trek to the NRA Annual Meeting of Members to try and push the NRA Board of Directors to take responsible action to do what’s best for NRA members and the Association.

Historically, it has been an exercise of futility, and this year was no exception.

Some 77,000 NRA members gathered in Indianapolis, Indiana, over the weekend of April 14 through 16th, 2023, for the association’s Annual Meeting and Exhibits. Most were just there for the guns and gear in the exhibit hall, but a few hundred took the time to attend the Annual Meeting of Members in an adjacent hall on Saturday Continue reading Once More Into the Breach: Trying to Save the NRA →