> Is somebody intentionally spreading this stuff and trying to fuel this fire exactly because they want to sow discord among the NRA faithful? No conspiracy th

> Is somebody intentionally spreading this stuff and trying to fuel this fire exactly because they want to sow discord among the NRA faithful? No conspiracy theory is required to explain why you're seeing these stories. The article goes into this in some detail, but the TL;DR version is that the NRA has been running enormous deficits for years now. The budgetary picture has finally become so bad that it's prompted an internal war over who's responsible, and so previously tightly held information about the NRA's operations is now leaking out all over the place as various factions try to cover their own butts. One thing that's become clear from these leaks is that the NRA spends far less on the things you care about ("gun safety training, support for high-school rifle teams and so forth") than they do on marketing and fundraising, where they apparently spend like drunken sailors. The picture that emerges is of an organization captured by its advertising agency, who steered it towards hard-line gun control stances and tighter integration with GOP politics because those things made for bigger fundraising numbers. The ad agency could then profit from that fundraising indirectly by milking the NRA with exorbitant fees for various services it provided. Many high-profile NRA leaders (including Oliver North) were actually paid employees of the ad agency rather than the NRA itself, which would help explain why none of them saw anything wrong with this arrangement. If you're at all interested in this subject, I would definitely recommend a close read of this article, it is full of illuminating information.