In one of the most shameless nonprofit grifts in recent memory, the outfit formerly known as the NRA Foundation—now rebranded as the 1791 Foundation—is demanding gun owners suffer collective amnesia. After 35 years of raising roughly $200 million by relentlessly trading on the NRA name through Friends of the NRA banquets, auctions, raffles, and donor appeals, these operators now claim the iconic brand was merely incidental.
The timing is perfect: right after the NRA sued to stop unauthorized use of its intellectual property, the Foundation ditched the name that built the fortune and expects everyone to pretend the last three decades of NRA-branded fundraising never happened. Donors didn’t write checks for some vague “1791” vision—they supported the NRA’s mission.
What makes this especially infuriating is the cast of characters now in charge. Many of the same Wayne LaPierre-era insiders and loyalists—tied to the scandals, self-dealing, luxury spending, and governance disasters that nearly sank the NRA—have simply migrated to control this freshly rebranded pile of donor cash. It’s termites fleeing one house only to set up shop next door as “property managers.”
Donors deserve full transparency and accountability, not slick legal maneuvers and donor amnesia. The money was raised under the NRA banner for NRA-aligned work. Letting LaPierre’s old crew walk off with it would be the final insult to millions of faithful supporters. Pattern recognition says: follow the money and stay skeptical.