This month marks the 234th anniversary of the ratification of the U.S. Bill of Rights. That’s not a nice round number, of course, but as we enter the 250th year since 56 delegates of the Second Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence—men who knew the British would likely hang them as traitors if they were captured or if the American colonies lost the war—it is worth pondering that it took 15 years of struggling for freedom to get from the Declaration to the U.S. Bill of Rights.
During this decade and a half, the Founders of this nation could not be certain that one would lead to the other. What was clear was that they were fighting for their freedom. Just as clear to them was that they could not have hoped to win their freedom if the citizens of what would become the United States of America were not armed—hence the inclusion of the Second Amendment as a right that shall not be infringed.
I bring up these anniversaries because we should not forget we are still walking in the footsteps of this history. The words in our Constitution—including its first 10 amendments—must remain as animating now as they were when they were eloquently written on 18th-century parchments.
Indeed, these freedoms are alive and strong because we continue to exercise them. As a bulwark and testament to this continued struggle, this association of millions of freedom-loving Americans is committed to protecting the 27 words in the Second Amendment.
We are the Second Amendment’s strength, as it is the physical use of this right that keeps it resilient. Gun-control groups know this, which is why they continue to try to make gun ownership and carry as difficult as possible.
Incredibly, as the NRA has shown in recent years, protecting this particular freedom extends to our other rights. The NRA, for example, won unanimously on First Amendment grounds at the U.S. Supreme Court in NRA v. Vullo (2024) after the state of New York abused its authority by attempting to destroy this association by threatening financial institutions that dared to work for or with us.
To stop this outright attack on our rights, we sued and kept pushing Vullo until it reached its unanimous conclusion in our nation’s highest court.
Going to court to fight for our freedom from the deep pockets of government is expensive. As resources are finite and because we are in these struggles to win, the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) is bold and smart but discerning about when and where to file court challenges.
For all of this necessary legal work, we need your support. I often note that we are only as strong as our membership, because it is true. That said, we apologize if we seem to ask too much of our members. We do so because the stakes are high and because we know that if we have enough resources, we can win, as we are in the right. Our Second Amendment does protect our individual right to keep and bear arms. This right also clearly does extend outside of our homes, as acknowledged by the U.S. Supreme Court in another NRA-backed case, the 2022 Bruen decision.
No doubt the Founders of this nation, now nearly 250 years after the signing of the Declaration, would approve of this association’s work to keep and, where necessary, win back the use of this constitutional right. They might even explain to us from their learned perspective that this advocacy is how freedom must be maintained in a constitutional republic. They would likely tell us that they gave us the First Amendment right to free speech and to petition the government so we would vociferously advocate for our Second Amendment-protected rights.
A look back to our nation’s founding, and to all that those individuals said in speeches and letters, makes it clear to me that this large membership association is the America they had in mind when they amended the U.S. Constitution to protect these freedoms.
The anti-gun groups, politicians and media members know it, too. They know that if they can defeat this civil-liberties association, then they will have an easier time dismantling the constitutionally protected right that defends all our other freedoms.
But, because of you and our association, the anti-freedom activists are failing right now. Freedom is being unleashed by the Trump administration. And your NRA is back under new leadership. So please, stay involved and tell everyone who cherishes their freedom that we are far stronger when we stand together. If we all network, via social media and in person, to ask those in our circles to go to nra.org to join, renew and donate, then we can continue to grow the influence of this critical association as we endeavor to teach freedom.
