The end of NRA? Financial documents show it is losing millions of members and money

Leaked financial documents from the National Rifle Association show that the famous American gun rights group has been losing members at a staggering rate since allegations of corruption surfaced in 2019. 

The NRA has lost over one million memberships since the organization reached its peak of 5 million members back in 2018 according to Will Van Sant from The Trace. 

The Trace is an independent and non-partisan news organization dedicated to revealing America’s gun violence crisis and has broken a number of important stories regarding the NRA. 

In 2021, The Trace reporter Mike Spies pulled back the curtain on the unsavory spending habits of the NRA’s executive vice president Wayne Lapierre, a story that tarnished the group's reputation but didn’t stop its board from reflecting Lapierre to leadership in 2022. 

“They have destroyed the NRA brand, they have lost credibility,” one anti-Lapierre board member told Will Van Sant of The Trace.

“In our society, firearms ownership is expanding, and these new gun owners are not joining the NRA, and it’s because of the brand.” the NRA board member added. 

According to Van Sant, the NRA’s membership had hovered around the five million mark for more than a decade. But after news of Lapierre's misuse of NRA funds became public, things started to go downhill quickly. 

Membership revenue would hit a staggering fifteen-year low of just $97 million dollars in 2021 according to Van Sant. 

“In an April 2021 deposition, LaPierre placed NRA membership just shy of 4.9 million,” Van Sant wrote, adding that at “a January NRA board meeting, LaPierre gave a figure of 4.3 million— which would be a 12 percent drop in just a year-and-a-half.”

The NRA's financial documents were obtained by Stephen Gutowski—founder of the pro-Second Amendment firearms analysis publication, The Reloaded—and they showed that the organization's membership has been on the decline since at least 2018. 

In his February 9th report, Gutowski revealed that while the NRA added 282,950 new members in the first eleven months of 2022, which was 175,000 short of the organization's projected target, leaving a $14 million dollar hole in the NRA’s budget. 

“The story only gets worse when looking at membership renewals, where the NRA converted nearly 165,000 fewer than expected, leading to a $17.7 million deficit,” Gutowski wrote.

“Overall, the group brought in $32.4 million less than anticipated from member dues during that time,” Gutowski added. 

Will Van Sant said that he believed plummeting NRA membership rates and declining financial support were likely due to the bad press the organization had received as a result of Lapierre. 

“A surge in gun purchasing during the pandemic, which under other circumstances may have resulted in a membership windfall, coincided with a period of scandal for the group,” Van Sant wrote. 

“In 2020, New York Attorney General Letitia James brought a lawsuit against the NRA that alleged LaPierre and others looted NRA assets for their own benefit in violation of nonprofit laws,” Van Sant added—a situation that could certainly explain why the organization seems to be floundering.