WASHINGTON — Today, after the NRA board announced Doug Hamlin, a longtime NRA executive under Wayne LaPierre, as its new executive vice president four months after LaPierre resigned from the position, Everytown for Gun Safety released the following statements:
“In just a few decades the NRA has gone from leadership the likes of Charlton Heston and Wayne LaPierre to former Congressman Bob Barr and some guy named Doug Hamlin,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “In selecting Hamlin, a longtime insider with much of LaPierre’s baggage and none of his fundraising ability, the NRA’s chaotic infighting and financial doom spiral shows no signs of stopping.”
“Choosing a longtime insider who disregards the deadly impact of his organization as executive vice president is just business as usual for the NRA,” said Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action. “Meanwhile, our communities continue to suffer from the gun violence that the gun lobby helps facilitate. It’s clear why our movement has grown to over 10 million strong while the NRA circles the drain.”
The board also elected former Republican congressman and one-time Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr as president. During the NRA trial in New York, Barr testified that Wayne LaPierre “as have all of us […] made mistakes” but had remedied those mistakes and generally performed his duties with care. He lauded LaPierre as having “dedicated a lifetime” to bettering the NRA and the country. This new leadership was selected by longtime NRA loyalists and is indicative of a refusal to change course despite calls for change from newly elected board members who ran on replacing current leadership and instituting internal reforms.
The NRA board also elected board member Bill Bachenberg as 1st Vice President. In 2020, Bachenberg, then co-chair of Sportsmen for Trump, appeared at a Trump fundraiser co-hosted by a far right organization whose founder believes he will one day be king of the United States. During his remarks at the event, Bachenberg laughed as audience members shouted about shooting Democratic politicians and giddily recounted a story about a man yelling about Hillary Clinton being shot. After the election, Bachenberg chaired the Trump campaign’s slate of fake electors in Pennsylvania and was subpoenaed by the House January 6th Select Committee. He allegedly provided a $1 million line of credit to fund Donald Trump’s efforts in multiple states to falsely claim fraud in the 2020 election.