NRA Sues NRATV Production Company, Ackerman McQueen

Opinion

Alexandria, Virginia –-(Ammoland.com)-The National Rifle Association has filed a lawsuit against their longtime marketing agency, Ackerman McQueen.

Ackerman McQueen has been the go-to marketing team for the NRA’s media wing for the past 30 years. Ackerman McQueen produces all the programming for NRATV. All NRA personalities are employees of the ad agency and not the NRA.

The NRA asked Ackerman McQueen to justify their billing for the service that they provide with NRATV, but the ad company refused to comply with the NRA demands. According to the NRA, Ackerman McQueen was obligated to provide information about the traffic that NRATV was generating for the site. Since the middle of 2018, the production company has ignored or refused to provide the information to the NRA.

Without these analytics, the NRA argues that it is impossible to justify the $42 million that the NRA paid Ackerman McQueen in 2017. These numbers “enable the NRA [to] analyze the return on its investment in NRATV.”

The NRA “requested access to material, readily available records that Ackerman and Mercury are contractually obligated to provide,” reads the lawsuit.

The business records that the NRA requested was the “budgets purportedly approved by the NRA, copies of material contracts for which the NRA is purportedly liable, and readily available performance data—all to inform the judgment of its fiduciaries.”

This marketing spending accounts for 14% of the gun rights groups total budget. The NRA paid Ackerman McQueen more than any other vendor on the payroll. Members have long criticized the NRA for spending so much money on personalities such as Colion Noir and Dana Loesch. They think this money would be better spent on fighting against anti-gun laws.

The NRA has been under constant attack by anti-gun groups and left-wing politicians. Under pressure from these groups, corporate sponsors have cut ties with the country’s oldest civil rights group. Also, states like New York have attacked the NRA’s “Carry Guard.”

New York put pressure on the insurance backers of “Carry Guard” to cut ties with the gun groups. The NRA says that New York interfered with its business by coercing “insurance agencies, insurers, and banks into terminating business relationships with the NRA that were necessary to the survival of the NRA.”

Ackerman McQueen for its part says that it has done nothing wrong and have provided a valuable service to the NRA through its NRATV.

“The lawsuit is ‘frivolous, inaccurate and intended to cause harm to the reputation of our company,” Ackerman McQueen said in responding to the lawsuit. “We will defend our position and performance aggressively and look forward to continuing to serve the NRA’s membership.”

Ackerman McQueen legal counsel also says the NRA lawyer that is spearheading the suit, William A. Brewer, has “irreconcilable conflict of interest.”

In a twist that is straight out of a movie, Brewer is the brother-in-law of Ackerman McQueen CEO Revan McQueen and son-in-law of Co-CEO Angus McQueen. The attorneys for Ackerman McQueen claim that Brewer “demonstrated, in words and deeds, his animus” towards the McQueen family.

Calls AmmoLand placed to Ackerman McQueen were not returned at the time of publication.

About John Crump

John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. He is the former CEO of Veritas Firearms, LLC and is the co-host of The Patriot News Podcast which can be found at www.blogtalkradio.com/patriotnews. John has written extensively on the patriot movement including 3%’ers, Oath Keepers, and Militias. In addition to the Patriot movement, John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and is currently working on a book on leftist deplatforming methods and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, on Facebook at realjohncrump, or at www.crumpy.com.

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