RSWC #226 Jim Wallace

Riding Shotgun With Charlie

#226

Jim Wallace

NRA BOD, NRA 2.0 Candidate

GOAL, Executive Director

 

I’ve known Jim Wallace and Gun Owners Action League as long as I’ve been a gun owner. I took a class with GOAL in 2002 before I even owned a gun. I became an instructor though GOAL, volunteered teaching with them, and even sat in their booth at the local outdoor expo. Having Jim on the show was a long time coming. And since he’s an NRA 2.0 candidate, now was the perfect time. 

 

Jim was a letter carrier with the postal system when he joined the Georgetown Fish & Game Club. He got  involved in the League of Essex County Sportsmen’s Club. After doing some searching around, he found out that the people doing the licensing for hunting and fishing were going to be online and it was going to be most costly. At the time, he wasn’t much of a speaker or activist, he was just looking to see where the money was going and why it was going up. This got the attention of the folks at Gun Owners Action League. They invited him to the office to see what he found, and they figured if he could do this while maintaining a full-time job, they could pay him and he could find out more. 

 

Back in the day, Jim spent a lot of time in the Mass State House on Beacon Hill. He was able to spend his days there just talking with the state reps and senators. They often had questions for him about upcoming bills and legislation. He was able to educate and inform them about how this was going to affect hunters, fishers, and shooters. 

 

Jim and GOAL have faced so many issues over the years in the anti-gun commonwealth of Massachusetts. We talked about the 1994 AWB and what happened   in 2004 when Governor Romney signed what he thought was going to be an improvement to the Mass gun laws, but ended up being a lot of gun control. Sometimes gun owners accept some bad laws to get some better laws that can, and should, be changed later. 

 

We cover a lot about the Gun Law Listening Tour of 2023 and how that was a sham hosted by the anti-gun politicians. I covered many of those events on News2A.com. After the tour and before the bill dropped, the main “writer” of the bill was visited by Gabby Giffords. I assumed that she gave the representative a hefty check and the legislation she wanted passed because when addressed about the contents of the bill, the Rep didn’t know what was in the bill.

 

We also got into the NRA stuff, covering how the board has been changing for the positive with new people and new blood. Wallace also brings up that NY AG Letitia James could be the person credited with saving the NRA by going after the association. 

 

As with all the episodes with the NRA 2.0 candidates, I want to emphasize that the 28 candidates running as the reformers need to be elected as a whole if we want to see changes to the NRA BOD. The ballots were sent out in the February NRA magazine issues and need to be in by April 6, 2025. The only members who can vote have to be a dues paying member for 5 years in a row or have a life membership. 

 

I went up to where Jim lives to record the episode. He lives on the very North Shore of Boston. We got to drive through his hometown area, see some of the scenery of those who live by the ocean, and where he used to hunt, and still lives an active outdoorsmen lifestyle.

Favorite quotes:

“I just dug because something didn’t look right.”

“As a result, I had weekly meetings with his Chief of Staff until he left office.”

“They didn’t care about input. They already had the bill written.”

“We didn’t turn that bill 180 but we certainly turned it 175 degrees.”

“There’s a little bit of education that’s going to have to happen with new people being on the board and how things work. But I think we’re heading in the right direction.”

 

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