NRA’s New President: A Rough First Day on the Job

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John Sigler, longtime NRA board member and retired police captain from Delaware replaced Sandra S. Froman as NRA president yesterday. Of course, you’d never know it from their website, where Froman’s President’s Column is still up. Or if you read the news. There were no news stories on Sigler’s first day, nary a press release.

We heard about the changeover via NRA radio (they have a nightly show at 9pm EDT):

As you can imagine this is not the way I wanted my presidency to begin, but it is important for our members to understand that we will do everything we can. If there is any way we can assist with law enforcement or with the families- I have no idea what that would be, it’s probably a hollow offer at best. We hope for an early resolution so the families can put this behind them.

The NRA too would surely like to see this incident behind them. But for now be sure that, yes, they will do everything they can to fight what will surely be a slew of new legislative proposals, on handgun purchases, background checks, concealed weapons, the gamut.

Froman, who was the second female president in the history of the NRA, gave a speech two weeks ago at Harvard Law School where she railed against New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin’s decision to confiscate guns from residents immediately following Hurricane Katrina. She said that the New Orleans government was “profoundly incompetent” and added that a person having a gun could have served as a safety net: “If the government isn’t protecting you, then it’s an insurance policy.”

Vigilante justice anyone?

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GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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