Gun Owners Alliance ALERTS!

Most recently, Neal Knox offered a Petition for a Bylaw Amendment Honoring Harlon B. Carter. You can view the petition at:

http://www.nealknox.com/sgn/sgn-archive/2002/BY03HBCF.doc

This petition, when I first saw it, was one of the most neutral of petitions I have ever seen Neal Knox offer, and my first impression was that of great bewilderment. Since when did Neal ever offer such a neutral petition that even his enemies (and my enemies) could agree to? After all, we are working for change within the NRA. Go to:

http://www.GunOwnersAlliance.com/no-compromise.htm

....for a bio of Neal Knox, go to:

http://www.GunOwnersAlliance.com/knox_bio.htm

Sometimes change is not well received, especially by the NRA's upper management.

This petition states:

   Special Honor

   The National Rifle Association of America shall honor the unique
   accomplishments of Harlon B. Carter, Whose 60 years of service
   include leading the Association as President from 1965 to 1967,
   as Founding Executive Director of the National Rifle Association
   Institute for Legislative Action in 1975 and 1976, and as Executive
   Vice President from 1977 to 1985, and Who, more than any other
   person or group of persons, created the modern National Rifle
   Association of America as concerned about defending gun rights
   as exercising those rights, By naming and prominently identifying
   the Headquarters at 11250 Waples Mill, Fairfax, Virginia as the
   "Harlon B. Carter NRA Building."

I must be candid. I could see the purpose behind the petition, but I, for the life of me, could not see the "importance" of taking the time to do this for the longest.......but with time, the "R E S T of the Story" began to unfold before me.

I expected for this petition to "sail" through, and be adopted.

Boy, was I wrong, as Neal Knox reported at http://www.nealknox.com

Here is what was sent to me 17 September 2002 from Knox's e-mail alerts:

   The NRA Board on Saturday unanimously ordered Secretary Jim
   Land to not allow members to vote on whether to name the
   Fairfax Headquarters the "Harlon B. Carter NRA Building" --
   in honor of the greatest of all the great figures in NRA's
   history.

   The reason: such an action by the members would "usurp the
   authority of the Board of Directors."

   That was stated in a legal opinion by NRA Outside Counsel
   Steve Shulman. It pointed out that New York Not-For-Profit
   Corporation Law requires that only the Board of Directors
   may sell, buy, or lease NRA property. But the proposed bylaw
   from Bill Davis and me would only decide whether the members
   wanted to name the building for Harlon.

   Our petition was fully qualified for next spring's ballot by
   far more than the required 500 signatures of voting members,
   in accordance with Article XV of the Bylaws.

   What the newer members of the Board weren't told and most
   didn't know is that in 1977, at Cincinnati, NRA voting
   members prohibited the Board from exercising its authority
   to buy or sell real estate.

   We members -- I made the motion -- prohibited the Headquarters
   from being moved from Washington, D.C., "nor shall the buildings
   or real estate owned by the Association ... at 1600 Rhode Island
   Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. be sold or leased, except with
   the approval of the membership...."

   The Board was infuriated, but they never questioned the
   legality of that restriction -- that member "usurpation"
   of their authority -- which remained on the books for over
   15 years, until the members approved the move to the new
   Fairfax Headquarters -- as the Board asked them to do.

   That precedent within NRA makes it quite clear that the
   members have the right to name the building -- or much
   more that the present Board and leadership would consider
   "usurping" their authority.

   After all, NRA Members Are The NRA.

   Or so we're told.
 

Bewildered & puzzled, I tried to see what other reasons the NRA would have (right or wrong) to "nix" this mundane and MOST neutral Petition for a Bylaw Amendment Honoring Harlon B. Carter.

To understand this better, you need to know about Neal's sometimes stormy relationship with Carter:

At that same 1977 members' meeting, according to Joe Tartaro's book, Revolt at Cincinnati, the members gave themselves the power to elect the Executive Vice President, and elected founding NRA Institute Director Harlon Carter. The next year Mr. Carter talked Neal into giving up being editor and publisher of Handloader and Rifle magazines in Prescott, Ariz., to "temporarily" move to Washington, D.C. to become Director of NRA ILA.  During the four years Neal held that critical job "no Federal gun law and no significant state gun law was enacted," Neal has written. Then, for reasons that few have ever understood, and I sure don't, Mr. Carter fired Neal. I do know they had a lot of harsh words for one another. Neal only hinted at that in his column announcing the bylaw petition in the July 10 Shotgun News at:

http://www.shotgunnews.com

Knox wrote:

   WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 10) - Harlon B. Carter is the
   greatest figure in the history of the National Rifle
   Association. I said so even when we were noisily
   disagreeing.

   In 1978, Harlon made me ILA Director, and in 1982 fired
   me, but by 1990 we were working together again.  As a
   sidebar to my February 1991 Guns & Ammo magazine article
   asking for votes for reform NRA Director candidates,
   Harlon wrote: "When the Board will not make needed
   changes, the NRA Board of Directors must be changed."
   Eleven of us were elected that year.
 

Neal has said it would not have happened, and he would never have been vice president of NRA if it had not been for Mr. Carter's support.  When I asked Neal about his disagreements with Carter he only said "We never disagreed about the Second Amendment, only about NRA matters."

Some long-time members of NRA, particularly some of the Houston people who helped organize the "Cincinnati Member Revolt" that put Carter in power have never forgiven Mr. Carter for firing Neal, which caused a great disruption in NRA. But it's clear from Neal's Shotgun News article that he and Carter had forgiven each other. Yet we've seen a  constant barrage of attacks against Neal Knox as a trouble maker. Trouble makers are not known to give honor to those in whom they had the most trouble.

And the LAST thing the "Winning Team" wants you to believe, is that Neal Knox is a "nice guy". Rather, they want you to see him as a wild-eyed radical who's sole purpose in life is to destroy the NRA.  Neal's bylaw, had members been allowed to see and vote on it, would have put the lie to rest about Neal Knox.

And now you know, "The R E S T of the Story" as to why this petition was scuttled, as it was.
 

NRA. The "Winning Team"?