How One Disgruntled NRA Donor Has Managed To Get Under The Gun Group’s Skin Editor’s Blog – Talking Points Memo

How One Disgruntled NRA Donor Has Managed To Get Under The Gun Group’s Skin

Editor’s Blog – Talking Points Memo 

 

September 3, 2019

 

by Josh Kovensky

Amid the pissing match that’s begun to drown the National Rifle Association over the past few months, there’s a relatively unknown figure who has found strange ways to cause lots of trouble with the country’s premier gun lobby.

His name is David Dell’Aquila. He’s a Nashville retiree and a great lover of beef who once boasted to the Baltimore Sun about his ability to eat two 48-ounce steaks in one sitting.
He also claims to be leading a bizarre insurrection of the nearly dead at the NRA, as I reported in July. He says that he has convinced elderly donors to write a collective $160 million out of their wills that had been pledged to go to the gun group after the members in question go to the great ammunition depot up in the sky.
But it’s exceedingly difficult to verify any of Dell’Aquila’s claims.
For one thing, last wills and testaments tend to be private. Dell’Aquila refuses to offer up evidence that would back up his $160 million estimate, citing donors’ demands for confidentiality.
Beyond that, he’s made a series of bizarre moves that raise fundamental questions about his seriousness. He filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the NRA in August, for example, but did so pro se — that is, he filed it representing himself. Dell’Aquila told me that he would hire counsel if the NRA didn’t accede to his demands.
Adding to the mystery, the lawsuit that he filed pro se was clearly written by an attorney. He confirmed that to TPM in a phone call, while declining to say who he had hired to do so and why they were not attached to the lawsuit.
So, why is this guy important?
He appears to have accreted enough significance to attract the ire of NRA leadership.
The group’s lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action, fired back at Dell’Aquila last week, bandying him about as a bogeyman to the NRA who is ungrateful for all of Wayne LaPierre’s efforts to protect the Second Amendment.
On top of that, the NRA just a few days ago blew $100,000 to move its September board meetings from their previously scheduled location of Alaska to Washington D.C. after Dell’Aquila had fiercely complained about the Alaska meetings, using them as an example of the decadence of the NRA’s ruling class.
The NRA-ILA appeared to cite Dell’Aquila’s activism around the planned board meeting in Alaska in its letter, opening with the (rhetorical) question: “Are David Dell’Aquila’s gun rights worth $100,000?”
“Whether he donates money to NRA to fund the fight or not – NRA is fighting for his rights and yours,” the letter went on to read. “And, YES! NRA has just moved its Fall Board meeting from Anchorage, Alaska to the Washington D.C. area at a cost of around $100,000.”
All of this poses the question: how can such an oddball apparently exert enough influence at the NRA to warrant becoming the subject of an angry fundraising email?
It may be a symptom of chaos at the non-profit, or a testament to the fruits of Dell’Aquila’s efforts to discourage donating to the NRA.
In any case, the infighting — and Dell’Aquila’s role in it — will likely continue to expose the inner workings of the country’s gun lobby. We’ll be watching.