Opinion
Tombstone, Arizona – You’ve probably already seen reports that Doug Hamlin, the National Rifle Association’s Executive Vice President (CEO), has announced some significant changes that will impact every NRA member.
As a member of the NRA Board of Directors, I’d like to share my perspective on the changes.
First, since taking the EVP job in mid-2024, Doug has been working tirelessly to put the Association back on a firm financial footing, and he’s been remarkably successful given the circumstances.
Doug has been focusing on restoring trust in the Association, improving member services, revitalizing core programs, and keeping (making) ILA effective, all while operating within a realistic budget. Even though the NRA has continued to struggle to increase membership and revenue, Doug has managed to bring the Association back into the black financially, while still making significant improvements.
Doug announced the realignment of several divisions, along with major changes in the Media Division. The changes that will be most apparent to NRA members are plans to consolidate the Association’s four magazines down into just the two flagship magazines: American Rifleman and American Hunter, while also converting them to a primarily digital, monthly format and reducing hard-copy, paper editions down from monthly to quarterly. What this means for NRA members is that, beginning next year, you will get your choice of either the American Rifleman or the American Hunter, while both America’s First Freedom and Shooting Illustrated will be discontinued. I believe ILA will continue posting Second Amendment-related information on an America’s First Freedom website, but not on a regular, magazine-style schedule. There might also be some continuation of Shooting Illustrated-type content on a dedicated website, but I’m not sure about that.
In recent years, one of the complaints I’ve frequently heard from NRA members has been about the dwindling content in the magazines. With four different magazines focused on four different aspects of the firearm and shooting world, content had a tendency to be spread a little thin. The new American Rifleman and American Hunter should incorporate popular segments, articles, writers, and photography from the two discontinued magazines, meaning both will be more comprehensive and informative. So members will have the option of two better magazines replacing four that were getting a bit thin. All of this will save the Association tens of thousands of dollars every month, allow articles and news coverage to be more timely online, while streamlining the whole department.
The other big change is the consolidation of the Membership, Marketing, and Advancement (major fundraising) divisions into one department. This makes a lot of sense when you consider the duties and objectives of these divisions. All three focus on extolling the value and benefits of NRA membership and support through direct mail, phone calls, and online outreach. Combining them will reduce redundancy, improve efficiency, and help keep everyone in the division on the same page.
Again, going back to common member complaints, the single most frequent complaint I hear from members is that they receive too many letters and phone calls asking for money or encouraging them to renew their membership.
One of the reasons for these excessive member contacts has been that different divisions within the Association weren’t coordinating with each other.
Membership would send out a letter encouraging someone to renew their membership, and the next day, the same member might receive a letter from the Marketing division asking them to support one of our programs. This might be followed a few days later by a letter from the Advancement office asking for a special donation. Add in several outside vendors, each incentivised by poorly-conceived contracts to make as many contacts as possible, plus the efforts of NRA-ILA, the NRA Foundation, the Women’s Leadership Forum, and other NRA-related or affiliated offices or programs, and it’s no wonder people were being inundated. All of that should be drastically reduced under the new structure, which puts the master database under the new division’s control. This will mean that all, or at least most, outreach will go through this division, and once someone has been contacted by any NRA entity or office, their name and information can be flagged for no further solicitation for a set period of time, greatly reducing the volume of contacts anyone receives from the Association.
This also provides an opportunity to clean up and enhance the Association’s databases, which are, frankly, outdated and woefully lacking in useful details. In a previous life, I was a database manager and programmer. I even taught a database management course in a college MBA program for a short time. I’ve also been privy to the data systems of major political parties and advocacy groups in the years I spent in the campaign consulting industry. The NRA’s data system has shockingly little useful information in comparison to those political databases. The result has been that the NRA has only ever been able to use a shotgun approach in their outreach efforts, sending thousands of letters in hopes a few of them reach the people who actually might be interested in whatever they’re promoting. They simply haven’t had enough useful data to effectively narrow down their approach to only contact people likely to respond, or to tailor their message to the specific interests and abilities of a chosen audience. That’s all changing under the new structure, with better data and tighter controls on the database. This will lead to fewer contacts yielding much better results, reducing costs, while increasing returns, and offending far fewer of our members and prospects in the process.
Sadly, major changes like this also mean that certain jobs simply go away, while others are redundant or under-utilized, at least until things really get off the ground and start building.
In all, I believe about 36 staff members were furloughed, primarily in the Publications, Membership, and Marketing areas. As I understand it, there were no staff from General Operations (programs and member services) or ILA affected. Ideally, many of the furloughed personnel will be brought back soon, depending on the needs of the Association.
I’ve seen lots of speculation suggesting that this is all part of some sort of desperate, last-ditch effort to stave off financial disaster, but that’s simply not true. This is just the next phase in an ongoing plan to make the operation more efficient and effective. While NRA’s finances are not nearly where any of us would like to see them, and there’s always the possibility of some setback due to something out of our control, such as a significant hit from one of the several lawsuits still working their way through the courts, we’re on solid financial ground, and have included those possibilities in the budgeting process. We’re operating within our means, and expect to close out the calendar year with a healthy surplus that will allow us to do even more to restore and expand core programs and increase legislative and legal activities next year.
As things stand, I believe 2025 will be remembered as the year the NRA turned the corner, and 2026 will be the year of the Association’s restoration and return to prominence. The current leadership inherited a pretty ugly mess, and if you had asked me three or four years ago whether the NRA could be saved, I’d have put the odds pretty low, as was obvious in my articles from that period, but now I’m very optimistic about the future. There are are still challenges and obstacles to overcome, but we’ve accomplished more than I dreamed possible when I reluctantly threw my hat into the ring to run for the Board of Directors two years ago. Even though the NRA is significantly reduced in revenue and membership since it’s peak from 2016 to 2018, it’s still the biggest dog in the fight, by far, and serving its members better than it has for many years, with even more on the way soon.
Stay tuned.
About Jeff Knox:
Jeff Knox is a dedicated political activist and the director of The Firearms Coalition, following in the footsteps of his father, Neal Knox. In 2024, Jeff was elected to the NRA Board of Directors, underscoring his lifelong commitment to protecting the Second Amendment. The Knox family has played a pivotal role in the ongoing struggle for gun rights, a legacy documented in the book Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War, authored by Jeff’s brother, Chris Knox.
Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, The Firearms Coalition is a network of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs, and civil rights organizations. The Coalition supports grassroots efforts by providing education, analysis of current issues, and a historical perspective on the gun rights movement. For more information, visit www.FirearmsCoalition.org.
