The most powerful gun lobbying group in the United States, the National Rifle Association (NRA), announced on Friday (15) that it had filed for bankruptcy in a Texas court as part of a restructuring process.
The arms group, created in New York after the Civil War (1861-1865), sought to end an investigation by the New York attorney general’s office into allegations of corruption leading to internal brawls and some outings board members.
In a statement, the NRA said it would restructure itself as a Texas nonprofit out of a “corrupt political and regulatory environment in New York” where it is currently registered. The entity filed a petition in the United States bankruptcy court in Dallas, the capital of the southern state.
Typically, nonprofit groups licensed in New York and under investigation are not permitted to travel during an investigation – the Attorney General’s office, for example, has prevented the Trump Foundation from shutting down before. that an investigation into the organization is not completed.
The group said in a statement that there would be no immediate changes in its operations or its workforce, and that it would continue to “combat anti-Second Amendment activities, promote security and the training of weapons to fire and advance public agendas across the United States ”. The second amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right to keep and bear arms.
“The NRA’s financial situation has finally reached its moral status: bankruptcy,” New York Attorney General Letita James said in a statement on Friday. “While we are analyzing this process, we will not allow the NRA to use this or any other tactic to escape the responsibility and oversight of my office.”
In August, James filed a lawsuit to dissolve the NRA, claiming leaders of nonprofit groups embezzled millions of dollars for personal gain and to buy the silence and loyalty of former employees.
James’ lawsuit in Manhattan state court alleges NRA executives paid for family trips to the Bahamas, private jets and expensive meals that helped cut $ 64 million (quote current) in three years.
In an attempt to block its investigation, the NRA sued James in federal court, claiming it violated the entity’s right to free speech. The dispute remains open.
The NRA over the past decades has been one of the main voices opposing arms control measures in the country. Donated over $ 30 million to the Donald Trump campaign in 2016.
The NRA’s actions are likely to suspend the attorney general’s case and a reinstatement could prevent him from seeking to dissolve the group. In his lawsuit, James said the incorporation of the NRA as a nonprofit in New York gave him the power to dissolve it.
The organization has come under pressure after the gun massacres in the United States in recent years, for advocating the maintenance of facilities for purchasing weapons. Difficult access to weapons is a means indicated as a means of preventing ordinary citizens from attacking schoolchildren, supermarkets and other public spaces.
In 2019, the association shut down NRA TV, a video channel created in 2016 and introduced with a setting in which one of its presenters, Grant Stinchfield, hammered a television tuned to CNN.
In another attempt to promote the use of guns, an association’s website published a reinterpretation of fairy tales that offered the following: Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, gun in hand, says to Lobo Mau that she doesn’t intend to turn around during her lunch.