We can begin with how my hometown pastor used to start every sermon: “Good News. Good News. Good News.” In the long-standing legal battle orchestrated against the National Rifle Association by New York Attorney General Letitia James—part of that state’s multi-pronged effort to destroy the NRA—we have finally prevailed!
As all of us are aware, good news must be considered along with a necessary warning: When you stand on the side of liberty and against government abuses of power, the fight is never over and we can never comfortably rest on our laurels.
First, a little background.
Founded in 1871 under New York not-for-profit law, the National Rifle Association is the oldest civil-rights organization in the country. The Association’s work over the past several decades has ensured that Americans can still practice their right to keep and bear arms, as enumerated in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Our long-running success, however, hasn’t come without ruffling more than a few feathers among those who, rather than embrace freedom, would like to see the Second Amendment relegated to the dustbin of history. Exhibit 1: New York’s attorney general, Letitia James.
In 2020, James sued to dissolve this association and seize its assets following a campaign-trail promise to target the NRA, its banks and its donors. During her 2018 campaign, James called the NRA a “criminal enterprise” and a “terrorist organization,” proving that her subsequent actions against us were politically motivated.
As explained in our countersuit, “James’ threatened, and actual, regulatory reprisals are a blatant and malicious retaliation campaign against the NRA and its constituents based on her disagreement with the content of their speech.”
After the NRA defeated the “corporate death penalty” gambit to revoke our charter and then to seize our assets, James asked the court to appoint a monitor to oversee the association and our activities. We vehemently opposed such moves, and this past summer, the court agreed and rejected the attorney general’s demands.
Finally, on Dec. 11, 2024, the judge in the lawsuit rendered his final judgment, essentially adopting all the strengthened audit processes we had already implemented internally over the past few years. In a nutshell, James had tried throwing everything in her book at us, including shutting us down, and failing that, to then appoint outsiders to oversee the management of our historic organization. Fortunately for freedom lovers everywhere, this politically motivated attempt failed. This was the ultimate stand at our moment of truth—defeating an unprecedented attack from the highest levels of the New York government.
Consequently, the NRA remains strong, safe and independent. It was a costly battle, indeed, but the NRA arose victorious once again. From the standpoint of winners and losers, the attorney general was very clearly the loser in the case. She cost us a lot of time and money fighting her—defending against her—but from an offensive standpoint, she gained nothing.
The mid-December judgment capped a six-year saga during which the NRA withstood not only that lawsuit but also a barrage of other blue-state regulatory actions, sweeping congressional inquiries and a de-banking effort by New York officials that became the subject of a blockbuster Supreme Court decision in May 2024. In that case, NRA v. Vullo, all nine justices backed the NRA’s First Amendment claims, and even the ACLU stood shoulder to shoulder with the NRA against New York’s attempt to shut down our First Amendment-guaranteed right to advocate for what we believe.
Of course, in the New York action, James declared victory upon the announcement of the final judgment. That, as we all know, is the same thing that gun-ban organizations do every time we hand them a loss on any issue.
With the lawsuit behind us, we can now fully concentrate on our core missions of membership, competition and protecting the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms without the distraction of a heavy-handed lawsuit weighing us down. Additionally, we can direct more of our funds toward those core activities, helping us grow larger, stronger and more effective at attaining our long-term goals.
To be sure, our victory was not only for the NRA and our members but also for other organizations that might have nothing to do with firearms but are targeted by government actors for their disfavored political advocacy.
All of this brings up the word of warning I mentioned earlier. On Nov. 10, 1942, Winston Churchill said: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” That is an apt description of where we now stand. We must keep fighting. We can’t rest on our laurels.
An oft-repeated quote is, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” Some other government agencies will try it again, so we always have to be on guard. We can’t sleep in this business because there are always more anti-freedom activists like Letitia James out there just waiting for another opportunity to come after us.
