As your NRA president, I encourage you to join us next month from April 16 to 19 at the 149th NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits in Nashville, Tenn. It is a rewarding and exciting experience like no other when our members come together annually to celebrate our great Association, our Second Amendment freedoms and fellowship with like-minded patriots. During the past two decades, I have been inspired in countless ways and gained so many great memories from attending the Annual Meetings. I began going in 2000, prior to joining the Board of Directors in 2003, and have since watched the attendance nearly double.
Just last year in Indianapolis, 81,283 of us—NRA members of all ages and walks of life—celebrated freedom amid an amazing 15 acres of firearm and gear exhibits. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence again joined us, as the current administration continues its unbowed and unprecedented support of our Second Amendment rights during one of the most divisive times in our nation’s history. Bankrolled by despotic billionaires, our opponents use every trick in the book to subvert and destroy this legacy wisely enumerated by America’s Founding Fathers, which in turn ensures all of our freedoms.
Since they cannot defeat us through free and fair elections, our adversaries in the media and elsewhere on the left have resorted to seeking to destroy the NRA. They insult and malign our patriotic members and leadership, including Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and members of your NRA Board. But we are an organization of freedom fighters, and we command a mighty presence when we come together each year.
At the Annual Meetings & Exhibits in Nashville, we will all gather to hear directly from Wayne, NRA-ILA Executive Director Jason Ouimet and other officers about the state of our Association. And there is good news to report. Even while being confronted with unprecedented challenges, we maintained historic membership levels and scored some major victories this past year. Here are just a few of our accomplishments from 2019.
Thanks to our many community partners and dedicated members, the NRA Foundation continued this year to support a wide range of educational and charitable programs, such as promoting firearm and hunting safety, law enforcement training; and NRA School Shield.
Our NRA continues to lead the way with our 117,000 instructors training approximately 1 million Americans to be safe and proficient gun owners. This commitment makes a positive contribution to the communities in which we all work and live.
NRA members actively supported the appointment and confirmation of judges who accurately interpret the law and protect what defines America—its constitutional freedoms.
We continued to make great progress in our lawsuit against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Department of Financial Services, who sought to blacklist our organization and infringe upon its First Amendment rights. Our legal campaign has earned the support of many, including the ACLU.
We won a highly publicized legal fight with the City of San Francisco, after its Board of Supervisors declared the NRA a “terrorist organization” and called for the local government to blacklist vendors or contractors who maintained relationships with the NRA.
We successfully fought an unconstitutional ordinance in Los Angeles that sought to harm those who do business with the NRA. To the chagrin of city officials, this ordinance has been barred from going into effect.
We are fighting a politically motivated investigation launched by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who as a candidate for that position in 2018, pledged to investigate the NRA despite no evidence of wrongdoing by the Association. Before even having spent one day in office, she referred to the NRA as a “criminal enterprise” and a “terrorist organization.”
To set the record straight, we launched a new website, nralegalfacts.org as an information resource for our members and key stakeholders. There you can find valuable insights into significant legal matters involving the NRA. We encourage you to visit the website to stay updated on emerging developments.
As we celebrate these achievements, we now gear up for the November 2020 elections. Let’s have a show of force in Nashville as we work to re-elect President Trump and pro-gun officials at the state and federal level. Plan your trip today by visiting nraam.org. You will not want to miss this Annual Meeting!
