Cris Cox used to be the NRA’s former political director and chief lobbyist.

New gun group launches to fill NRA vacuum

Anew gun rights group is launching a six-figure ad buy in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, focusing on the millions of Americans who became gun owners during and after the COVID pandemic.

Why it matters: The NRA — the longtime premier gun-rights group in the U.S. — cut its political spending from $54 million in 2016 to $29 million in 2020, according to OpenSecrets data. It has reserved $1.3 million in ad spending in 2024, according to AdImpact.

  • The Secure Our Freedom Alliance, a 501(c)4 organization, isn’t looking to compete with existing firearm groups, but wants to fill what it sees as an urgent need to address gun owners this election cycle.
  • By some estimates, post-pandemic, there are some 22 million new gun owners.

The big picture: The goal is to convince new gun owners, especially women and minorities, that their rights are under attack by the Biden administration and progressive politicians.

  • “Our purpose is to win the hearts and minds of the American public to protect the right to self-defense,” said Chris Cox, a senior adviser to the new group and the NRA’s former political director and chief lobbyist.
  • “Every American family has a right to protect themselves and their homes from violent criminals, and the right to choose the method of self-defense they deem best,” he said.

Zoom in: The NRA, founded after the Civil War, declared bankruptcy in 2021 and tried to reincorporate in Texas.

  • But its influence and its revenue has dwindled.
  • Along with robust advertising and lobbying campaigns, the NRA’s president, Wayne LaPierre, was also spending lavishly on clothing and travel, inviting a lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) for improperly using charitable contributions.
  • LaPierre resigned from the organization in January of this year. In February, he was found liable for misspending $5.4 million of the group’s money by a New York jury.

What they are saying: “Between now and November, NRA will be strategically targeting key states to reelect President Trump and stop Kamala Harris from taking her radical gun confiscation agenda to the Oval Office,” said Doug Hamlin, NRA executive vice president and CEO, in a statement to Axios.

  • “We will be engaging with our millions of members and gun owners to elect pro-freedom candidates up and down the ballot,” he said.

Driving the news: The ads by the new group are directed at younger voters, as well as women and minority gun owners, with an emphasis on self-defense.

  • “Our neighborhood, it’s not so good,” says the mother in one 30-second commercial, as she’s tucking her daughter into bed.
  • “She is my responsibility and I will protect her,” she says, locking away a handgun on her nightstand.

Another ad shows a young woman at the shooting range with her father. She then holsters her pistol and heads out on a run by herself.

  • “As a woman, I made the decision to always be ready.” she says. “To carry a gun is my freedom and my right.”

The bottom line: “We are going to make the case to the American public that he [Biden] is wrong, anti-gun liberals are wrong, and that the right to self-defense is fundamental to every law-abiding American,” Cox said.