‘Misfire: Inside the Downfall of the NRA’

Review by Bill Doughty––

Retired Marine Corps Lt. Colonel Oliver “Ollie” North is the unlikely hero who tried in vain to save the National Rifle Association from complete implosion during a humiliating scandal involving grift, corruption, and collusion with a Russian agent.

Tim Mak makes that case for Ollie North in “Misfire” (Dutton/Penguin Random House, 2021), the definitive history of the modern NRA. It’s a surprisingly timely book as the nation commemorates the anniversary of the insurrection and coup attempt of January 6, 2021 (called by some "J6" or "1/6").

If North is a hero of sorts in attempting to rescue the NRA, Wayne LaPierre and his wife Susan are depicted as the villains, along with dozens of other sketchy characters, both American and Russian, including Bill Brewer, Angus McQueen (who worked in the Navy Office of Information during the Vietnam War,) Millie Hallow, Woody Phillips, David Keene, and Maria Butina. 

According to Mak, LaPierre recruited North as a celebrity figurehead in the mold of Charlton Heston. “Wayne had hoped that North would follow the model of previous NRA presidents. But instead he brought on board a Marine who was going to be nosy, persistent, and hands-on.” (And not just "cold, dead hands," as Heston once said.)

Retired U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Oliver North, center, is greeted by Navy Cmdr. Michael Wheeldreyer, CO of guided-missile destroyer USS Halsey (DDG 97), and XO Antoinette McCann aboard the ship in the Gulf of Aden Feb. 25, 2012. North visited Halsey to gather footage for his TV show, "War Stories with Oliver North." (MC1 Krishna M. Jackson)

Mak notes North’s roots as a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, class of 1968; his father fought in Gen. Patton’s Third Army during World War II. “All Ollie North had ever wanted to do was lead men into combat as a U.S. Marine Corps infantry officer.” But after returning from combat in Vietnam in 1969, “he was scarred by the traumatic memories that he brought back home.” He turned away not only from guns but even from hunting for a while till fellow former Marine Joe Foss, then-NRA president, reached out. North is well-known as the central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal in the mid-1980s and, later, as a television commentator.

Ollie North

Once he became president of the NRA, North chose to be an active and engaged leader. “North brought the attitude of a commanding officer.”

“North had lofty goals: to raise the membership of the gun rights group from between five and six million to fourteen million. But that was before he looked under the hood. Almost as soon as he started in his new role, he immediately realized that he had entered an organization in crisis. The NRA was just months away from a crisis in which its payroll was nearly not paid out; expenses were rising, especially legal costs; and the numbers of donors and contributions were down.”

North took an immediate pay cut, from more than two million dollars a year to $1.75M.

In 2020 the NRA saw itself downsized to 490 employees, down from 770. There were more cutbacks. The NRA also had to reduce its contribution to Donald Trump’s campaign to $17M, down from the previous contribution of $30M.

The LaPierres and their close associates were not interested in North’s attempted reforms, according to Mak. They fought any proposed investigations into the NRA’s financial troubles and moved to oust North as NRA president on April 25, 2019. North exited, reportedly saying, “I’m going home. Humility is a virtue. Being humiliated is a sin.”

New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, brought a lawsuit against the NRA challenging its tax-exempt status as a nonprofit organization. LaPierre attempted to file for bankruptcy on behalf of the NRA as “a hail-Mary tactic.” One could call it "hail-Maria" tactic, in honor of the Russian agent who made political connections for Russia at the American National Prayer Breakfast. She had affairs with influential men connected with the NRA and even interviewed candidate Donald Trump. 

Mak documents the rapid rise and crashing fall of Maria Butina in "Misfire."

Russian agent and friend of the NRA Maria Butina

Mak’s fascinating reporting about the corruption of the organization over two decades includes monumental mismanagement of donations, hypocritical hype in the wake of mass shootings, fomenting of fears in order to raise money, and greedy grifting with people like Butina.

According to court records tied to the NRA’s failed attempt to declare bankruptcy, in 2019 and 2020 the NRA cut millions of dollars from “safety, education & training” and cut spending on “hunter services” by more than 60 percent (to less than 0.08 percent of reported spending in 2020). Meanwhile, the NRA continued to sponsor gun shows, membership drives, and politicians.

Old NRA / Gun Training & Safety

It wasn’t always that way for the organization that aims to protect the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

Mak notes that the NRA is older than the American Red Cross. “It was formed in 1871 to improve the marksmanship of American soldiers.” At its foundation was gun safety, not proliferation of military-style assault weapons without accountability.

In 1934 the NRA endorsed restrictions of sales of machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, and silencers. Decades later, the NRA supported then-California Governor Ronald Reagan’s law ban on openly carrying loaded weapons in public.

And, “After the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., the NRA supported the Gun Control Act of 1968, which according to one summary ‘banned the interstate retail sale of guns, prohibited all sales to  juveniles, convicted felons, and individuals adjudicated as being mentally unsound.’”

After the Columbine High School massacre of 1999, the deadliest school shooting in the United States till then, in which 12 students and one teacher were murdered, LaPierre said publicly, "We believe in absolutely gun-free, zero-tolerance, totally safe schools.That means no guns in America’s schools. Period."

After the horrific murder of 20 first-grade children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012, the NRA briefly supported background checks and seemed to support parts of the Manchin-Toomey Act before reversing its stand, withdrawing support and threatening lawmakers.

In other words, the NRA formerly stood for common sense until a tectonic shift when it became “a much more aggressive regime focused on fighting gun control laws” and trying to get more guns into the hands of people, even in schools. But, the NRA faced a backlash from many of its members. And –– "Soccer moms were pissed."

Today, according to Mak, “The National Rifle Association has a Field & Stream membership with Fox & Friends leadership.” On August 6, 2020, Sean Hannity of Fox News, said in an interview on Fox, “The Left has talked about eliminating the Electoral College. They want to stack the courts. They've always hated the Second Amendment, he said, adding "They've always hated the NRA."

New NRA / Misfire & Backfire

LaPierre’s private jets, vacations to the Bahamas, and $275,000 worth of fine Italian suits are just the tip of the iceberg that crashed the titanic gun lobbying organization. Mak also shows how the NRA expanded its ties with the Republican Party and Russia’s Internet Research Agency in a misinformation/disinformation campaign to influence the presidential campaign.

Wayne LaPierre

“But the irony is that by endorsing Trump and ensuring his victory, the NRA sowed the seeds of its own destruction,” Mak says. Fear and gun sales go up when progressive liberal politicians are in power, but when Trump won the Electoral College tally in 2016, there was “no fear left to monger.”

More free-thinking Americans were repulsed by the toxic NRA brand after the group’s hypocrisy came to light, which is similar to the reaction of President George H.W. Bush, a Navy veteran of WWII, who publicly resigned his membership after the NRA called federal agents “jack-booted thugs.”

Who were the true patriots?

“The bottom line is that the National Rifle Association, for all its culture-war noise and reliance on patriotism as a selling point, was more than willing to meet with America’s designated adversaries for personal gain. And, in doing so, it served as a conduit for a Russian government agent who was secretly trying to build back channels between Russia and U.S. officials in order to undercut American interests.”

Many of the insurrectionist rioters at the Capitol on January 6, 2001, considered themselves to be NRA-supporting patriots. Only nine people were arrested with firearms that day, but more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition were confiscated. However, without Washington D.C.’s strict gun control laws, 1/6 could have been a bloodbath, with people firing guns instead of chemical spray at law enforcement officers or using metal poles as weapons.

J6 / Psalm 26

According to Jake Charles of the Duke University Center for Firearms Law blog, “The events of January 6, 2021 were tragic and shameful. Five people lost their lives as a result of the failed attempt to overthrow our elected government. But without the federal and D.C. gun laws in place, it could have been much worse.”

Charles adds, “D.C. law bars openly carrying firearms and restricts both concealed carry and the types of firearms that one can transport or possess. The current laws have been upheld against Second Amendment challenge, with judges crediting the government’s compelling interests in public safety as reason for banning select semi-automatic weapons and large-capacity magazines. Federal law also bars gun possession not only in the Capitol building itself but also on Capitol grounds, which cover almost 300 acres of the District. This law too has been upheld against constitutional challenge.”

According to Everytown Research & Policy, “The deadly insurrection attempt at the Capitol was fueled, in part, by gun rights extremists who brought their firepower to Washington to stop the certification of the electoral college votes.” 

Everytown issued a comprehensive report in late January last year titled “The Role of Guns & Armed Extremism in the Attack on the U.S. Capitol,” showing the NRA’s responsibility in fomenting “conspiratorial rhetoric that animates extreme right actors,” such as those who stormed the Capitol.

Tim Mak

Mak, an investigative correspondent, has continued to report on the NRA implosion and has done extensive reporting on extremism in the wake of 1/6. According to his bio, “Mak holds a B.A. from McGill University, where he graduated as valedictorian. He is also a former U.S. Army medic and EMT who worked on the front lines of the COVID pandemic. In his spare time he likes to run, play the guitar, and surf.” 

“Misfire: Inside the Downfall of the NRA,” Mak's first book, cuts off in a jarring and intriguing way, leaving the reader reflecting and wondering “what comes next?” 

Ollie North was in a reflective mood as he left his position as NRA president, according to Mak. “(H)e thought of a Bible verse, Psalm 26, which reads in part: ‘I do not sit with the deceitful, nor do I associate with hypocrites / I abhor the assembly of evildoers, and refuse to sit with the wicked.'”

“Misfire” is a tour de force book to help understand how the NRA became subverted and in turn clouded any common sense and common ground discussion of firearm regulations in society while still respecting the Second Amendment to the Constitution.