It's a stunning downfall for LaPierre, 74 years old, who helmed the powerful National Rifle Association for decades. In the New York trial, the New York attorney general said NRA insiders used the nonprofit as a "personal piggy bank." As we write in American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15, LaPierre played a critical role in publicly defending civilian ownership of AR-15s and similar rifles after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook in 2012. The shooter in that attack used an AR-15. He also led NRA activists and lobbyists to press Congress to blunt efforts to limit civilian sales of AR-15s.
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with
a gun,” he said just days after Sandy Hook.
