I’m not a Second Amendment purist — the First Amendment is my thing — and often believe that many fellow conservatives go way too far in their absolutizing of gun rights. That said, this news today out of New York is very alarming:

The New York attorney general, Letitia James, filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking to dissolve the National Rifle Association, alleging that years of corruption and misspending had irreparably undermined its ability to operate as a nonprofit.

The lawsuit sets up a legal confrontation that could take years to play out and will leave the 148-year-old N.R.A. — long the nation’s most influential gun-rights lobby but recently hobbled by financial woes and infighting — fighting for its survival. The attorney general’s office previously presided over the dissolution of President Trump’s scandal-marred charitable foundation, but the N.R.A., with more than five million members, is a far larger organization that is expected to put up a more prolonged fight.

Ms. James also sued four current or former top N.R.A. leaders, seeking tens of millions of dollars in restitution, including Wayne LaPierre, the longtime chief executive. The others named in the suit are John Frazer, the organization’s general counsel; Josh Powell, a former top lieutenant of Mr. LaPierre’s; and Woody Phillips, a former chief financial officer.

The suit accuses the N.R.A. and the executives of “violating numerous state and federal laws” by enriching themselves, as well as their friends, families and allies, and taking improper actions that cost the organization $64 million over three years. The attorney general has regulatory authority over the N.R.A. because it is chartered as a nonprofit in New York. She is also seeking to oust Mr. LaPierre and Mr. Frazer, and to bar all four men from ever serving on nonprofit boards in New York again.

Read it all. 

If you have a basic familiarity about the way Wayne LaPierre has spent money on himself over his tenure as the NRA’s head, you’ll know that he is a difficult person to defend. Read this, and try to maintain with a straight face that the LaPierre regime is not corrupt. Rank and file NRA members, sick of seeing their dues going to pay for the high life of LaPierre and NRA organizational elites, are mad as hell, and they’re right to be.

The New York AG sees weakness in the LaPierre rot, and is using it to try to destroy the gun rights group, which she once referred to as a “terrorist organization.”

LaPierre and his team have left the NRA vulnerable to attacks like this, no question. But let’s be clear about what this is: a Democratic attempt to exterminate what has been an extremely effective defender of gun rights. If LaPierre’s personal and professional problems are leaving the NRA open to this kind of attack, then they have to go; the cause is more important than they are. Still, the lesson from this is that this is what the Democrats will do in power. Once Biden is in the White House, I expect the full force of the federal government to come down on the NRA as part of a longer war against Second Amendment rights. Perhaps Biden has more sense than to pick that particular fight, given that it’s easier to wage that particular battle as AG of New York than AG of the United States.

Still, this is a shot across the bow about the future of gun rights in a Democratic-rule America. I hope Second Amendment advocates won’t be manipulated into thinking that defending the LaPierre regime is the same thing as defending the NRA and the Second Amendment cause. The New York AG makes it clear that she’s not really concerned about cleaning up the NRA, but destroying it.

Why she made this move just a few months before the fall election, I don’t know. This is going to rile up the Right, and it should. But let us not miss this lesson: we on the Right are not going to be able to sustain ourselves in the many battles ahead with the resurgent progressive Left if we have leaders and organizations that care more about self-aggrandizement and comfort than in fighting for principles and causes.