Former Carry Guard Insurer Claims NRA Was Asking For Witch Hunt

[Bearing Arms 388]

The National Rifle Association is in a tough bind. While I doubt the organization is going to go away any time soon, the state of New York’s efforts to curtail the group’s ability to do business certainly isn’t going to help it stick around.

Earlier today, we noted that Governor Andrew Cuomo essentially admitted that this whole thing was personal following a blatant attempt at misrepresenting the Carry Guard insurance.

Now, The Trace is reporting that Lockton, the company that had insured the Carry Guard program, is basically saying the NRA was asking for it.

The NRA and Lockton have also taken their own messy divorce to court in a separate suit. That battle is notable for what it reveals about the extent of the gun group’s current isolation.

In the NRA’s depiction, Lockton failed the gun group, which trusted the broker not to run afoul of local laws when devising and marketing insurance. Lockton breached its contract, the NRA alleges, when it caved to New York’s bullying and ended a longstanding “mutually beneficial” relationship. In its own filings, the insurance firm puts its decision to sever ties in a different light. Lockton argues that the NRA brought the troubles on itself, by amping up its rhetoric to the point of radioactivity.

“The NRA’s own overtly political and inflammatory approach” to marketing, “as well as its provocative public stances, have resulted in a shift in the enforcement priorities of insurance regulators and heightened scrutiny,” Lockton said in a counterclaim filed in June, which The Trace is reporting on here for the first time. It was the NRA, Lockton adds, who put its insurance products  “within this broader political maelstrom.”

The NRA is exactly what it was when they first rolled out Carry Guard. The organization hasn’t changed in decades, really, with a few tweaks here and there. For Lockton to claim the NRA’s involvement in the political sphere makes them responsible for anything is beyond ridiculous.

What it boils down to is that Lockton got spooked and bolted. Nothing more, nothing less. Honestly, that’s fine. I get it. When the governor with the most power over the financial industry starts making veiled threats to the industry, companies have a right to be worried.

I don’t agree with their move, but I get why they made it.

But to claim that the NRA somehow brought this on themselves is stupid. They’re a civil liberties organization focused on the right to keep and bear arms, a right that other civil liberties organization routinely ignore as a matter of course if they don’t outright condemn it. That means the NRA, as the largest pro-gun group, has to lead the charge.

And they have, completely and consistently in compliance with what we, the members, want.

For Lockton to claim any of this is the NRA’s responsibility or fault means they had to have completely failed at every level on their due diligence when partnering with the NRA in the first place. That’s not on the NRA, who hasn’t exactly been quiet about who they are as an organization. That’s on Lockton, and now Lockton is trying to cover their own rears.

The post Former Carry Guard Insurer Claims NRA Was Asking For Witch Hunt appeared first on Bearing Arms.

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