Mr. Suprynowicz:
I don't know if you heard much about the internal strife at Gun Owners of America recently, but apparently the President, Sen. H.L. Richardson, was co-opted (if he was ever with us) by the NRA and fired Dennis Fusaro and Mike Rothfeld, GOA's State Legislative Strategist (whom you met at the seminar he taught in Las Vegas in 1998).
The following briefly explains the key points (written by Mike Rothfeld)...you should call Dennis for the full story.
Gun owners and defenders of freedom were dealt a SERIOUS blow by this!
A faithful reader of The Libertarian, Tom Campbell
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Subj: A N G R Y Date: 3/16/01 6:47:41 PM Eastern Standard Time From: MIRothfeld To: MIRothfeld BCC: Keep14b
What follows is not confidential. All views are solely my own.
Dennis Fusaro was fired today as he made his way back from New Hampshire after testifying at a committee hearing Wednesday. He was given fair severance.
It is my understanding that, at the request of California (i.e. H.L. Richardson), he was fired by GOA staffer John Velleco. Larry Pratt was traveling. I do not know the reasons for Dennis' firing.
Effectively immediately, I resigned my consultin relationship with GOA ... though my resignation preceded my axing by minutes.
When Dennis and I began working together to build a state-based political operation in 1994 (modeled on the National Right to Work Committee's philosophy and tactics which Dennis learned from Huck Walther and I practiced at the Committee for five years), GOA's presence in the states was effectively zero.
State-by-state gun owners were losing their rights, usually without a serious fight -- few folks knew who GOA was, none cared. GOA was a threat to no politician.
At that time, the reigning paradigm was "Access-based" (pushed primarily by state-level sports-shooting lobbyists with virtually no grass-roots to call on and NRA reps overloaded with work and too often with a "we cannot win, so let's cut a deal and lose slower" mentality): Find out what politicians will accept, make a deal, defend it to the grass-roots as it gets worse, and then claim victory to the press and pro-gun contributors.
Dennis and I set out systematically to blow up this paradigm ... and to get the pro-gun movement back to fighting to win through confrontation with politicians and mobilization of pro-gun grass-roots.
And in two dozen or more states (more every year we operate), we mostly have -- far better than I thought possible when we started (to God be the Glory).
There are far fewer deals made now, because politicians have learned GOA will not support them ... and, more importantly, that we will rally the troops to make the politicians pay who agree to the deals.
In addition, the lobbyists who cut the deals are far more hesitant. They lose credibility when they make a deal and it blows up.
Occasionally, this necessitates direct engagement with pro-gun lobbyists (for example, the NRA rep who threatened an "A" State Senator in Oklahoma with an "F" if she worked with us to force a vote on Vermont-style conceal carry). More often, it requires a simple generic report ("some misguided pro-gun lobbyists").
Most of the time, success is achieved without ever mentioning the pro-gun deal-makers directly or indirectly.
Of course, there are fights where we are all on the same side (for example, the Washington State initiative two years ago).
More often, GOA and our state-level allies fight alone now. But, that is a vast improvement over five years ago.
Now at least, most of the time, we do not have to openly fight other pro-gunners (though their sniping is ceaseless).
However, to be blunt, the "Access-based" pro-gun lobbyists' paradigm has not changed (in fact, the current NRA leadership seems even less confrontational than the previous).
But the price they pay for engaging their paradigm has risen steeply.
In addition to all this, Dennis and I have trained THOUSANDS of pro-gunners in twenty-plus states the tactics that have brought victory -- OK, I admit, in the current environment we mostly have stopped defeats -- far beyond what GOA's current resources can achieve.
Many of these pro-gunners have founded and built independent groups which now have thousands of supporters, state media presence, and annual budgets of tens of thousands of dollars or more.
This is a force-multiplying program that even National Right to Work does not have.
So what will the future bring?
I cannot say for sure. I predict more compromise, more negotiation, more mush. Of course, no one will call it that. But those of you who have fought to win the last few years will know the difference ... and ay the price.
Sitting down with anti-gunners and pro-gun compromisers to negotiate implies agreement at some level. Secret meetings are only secret until someone decides to call the press.
Even if most pro-gun organizations peal off a deal in the end, anti-gunners and the media will not ... and the press will continue to claim there is support from "even some pro-gun leaders".
I especially want to warn about an NRA representative named Brian Judy. Last year, without telling us, he put out a letter defending Governor Mike Leavitt of Utah when GOA had Leavitt in our sights due to his outspoken push for gun control the previous year. When confronted by GOA's Utah allies, Judy claimed he was ordered to send the letter by Washington, though he insisted that he had told them it was the wrong thing to do. I do not believe him. Sarah Thompson can clarify the details.
This year he cut Sarah off at the knees with a last-minute deal to undo a recognition bill she had drafted, caused to be introduced, and sheparded through the House. He blamed Sarah for making legislators "angry."
Judy has the ear of California.
Playing confrontational politics demands strong nerves AND a solid front.
Many of you know Mark Mix, Senior Vice President of the National Right to Work Committee. Mark does an excellent presentation on what happens when deals go bad and politicians and the access-based lobbyists who protect them start to whine. In some ways, I confess his description is better than my own.
But we both agree, making the problem go away by finding a shut-off valve at the group's HQ is always a strategy.
Through Brian Judy and others (probably Chuck Cunningham), this seems to be what has happened to Dennis and GOA's state program.
All over the country, grass-roots pro-gun activists have looked to GOA generally and to Dennis (and, to a much lesser extent, me) specifically for tactical leadership.
They know the "Access-based" paradigm is wrong; some because Dennis or I explained it and they understood, many others because they recognized without being told the political poverty of the approach that brought loss-after-loss in their state.
Regardless of what happens now with GOA, I hope those of you whom Dennis and I have trained and helped will fight on. I sure plan to.
As you well know, for hundreds and hundreds of the best activists in America, GOA's program has been seen as the last-best-hope. Many had quit or were ready to quit, before Dennis and I showed them thee was a way to fight to win over the long-term.
These pro-gun grass-roots leaders have been taught by us, and through his writings, that H.L. Richardson is a hero and a father to all we have achieved.
Although it may seem faint and late praise, I want to state that Larry Pratt is a man of honor and faithfulness. I sincerely thank him for the opportunity to work through GOA for values shared. I am persuaded that my time was not wasted.
Use this memo as you see fit.
For freedom ...
Best regards,
Mike Rothfeld 3/16/01
Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken