In French, pierre means “stone.” So when we here at AP think about Wayne LaPierre — the public face of the National Rifle Association — we think of him as a mainstay of the nation’s most powerful gun rights group. By encouraging the reckless use of assault weapons, the NRA has blood on its hands.
Turns out, though, that LaPierre and NRA president Oliver North (remember Ollie from Reagan's Iran-Contra Scandal?) have been in a fight to the death. We gleefully report that the NRA is in a financial crisis, especially over debts incurred to advertising agency Ackerman McQueen. That Oklahoma-based company was sued by the NRA over allegations that it was deliberately hiding details about how it was spending millions of the NRA’s dollars (https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/27/nra-oliver-north-1291369). So both North and LaPierre are done.
Yesterday, Donald Trump gave a stemwinder pep talk to the NRA convention in Indianapolis, but that was not enough to stem the civil war inside the NRA.
Associate solitary reporter Susanna Sherman found LaPierre and North walking around dazed and homeless and looking for former Indiana conservative talk show host Mike Pence to give them handouts so they could avoid spending the night in a homeless shelter. But Pence was in Washington polishing up Trump’s boots, a job he relishes.