Executive Summary
The National Rifle Association (NRA) is an immensely powerful political advocacy group in the United States of America. It mobilises tens of millions of dollars annually to advocate against gun control measures in state and federal legislatures and has enjoyed considerable success in its ‘pro-gun’ agenda since the organisation began its lobbying activities in the late twentieth century.
While the role of the NRA in U.S. domestic politics has been discussed at length in mainstream media sources and remains a key point of contention in American political discourse, the organisation’s international activities have been subject to comparatively scant scrutiny.
Therefore, this report by AOAV intends to provide a brief overview of the NRA’s international financial and strategic activities and the potential implications this has for global politics and gun safety, whilst offering some recommendations for next steps forward.
The National Rifle Association officially refrains from making direct foreign monetary contributions to pro-gun groups or lobbies, as explicitly outlined in the group’s charter and reflected in its annual tax returns. This does not, however, mean that the NRA lacks financial or political interests outside of the United States. On the contrary, the organisation has maintained a suspicious and under-examined multi-million-dollar ‘investment account’ in Central America for over a decade, the motivations and details of which still remain opaque.
The NRA also fosters strong ties with international small arms manufacturers and gun advocacy groups forged in its own image, seemingly to discreetly further its mission of global gun ownership deregulation.
While the NRA consistently minimises its international involvement for public relations purposes, it provides strategic advice, materials, and policy playbooks to organisations fighting gun control laws, particularly in the Anglosphere and throughout the Western Hemisphere.
This report, then, seeks to expand upon the limited research conducted into this aspect of the NRA’s activities and to call attention to the organisation’s international financial and strategic activities.
International Financial Disclosures and Investments
AOAV’s analysis of the NRA’s 990 tax filings with the IRS from 2014 to 2022 reveals consistent patterns in its financial activities abroad. In each of the years examined, the organisation reported holding international investment accounts in excess of $2 million, while simultaneously declaring less than $5,000 in ‘grants or financial assistance’ to foreign entities or individuals.
While this imbalance is theoretically achievable, the gulf between declared ‘investments’ and ‘financial assistance,’ as well as the ample opportunities for ‘dark money alchemy’ that exist within that gulf, make this aspect of the organisation’s tax filings fertile ground for investigative scrutiny.
One of the most compelling aspects of the NRA’s public filings can be found in Schedule F, an appendix to the 990 form requiring the disclosure of ‘activities conducted by the organisation outside of the United States’ during a given tax period.
Over the period that was analysed, AOAV found that the NRA averaged holdings of $4.3 million in the Central America and Caribbean Region. Though the amount disclosed varied by up to a million dollars year-over-year, the organisation has consistently maintained between $3 and $5.5 million in disclosed foreign investment in that area of the world for at least the last decade. These funds are vaguely described as “Investments” or “Investment Accounts,” with no detailed explanation.
The NRA’s lack of transparency of these millions of dollars raises concerns about the nature and purpose of these funds, which remain active despite an absence of any reported foreign bank accounts during the same period.
It is surprising that this overseas account has not received stronger scrutiny, particularly given the controversial nature of the NRA’s political activities in the United States. In the few instances where major publications do mention the Central American Investments, they are referred to only in vague terms, such as ‘unspecified funds.’
Why does this matter? Well, the organisation’s economic presence in that region is concerning due to the fact that Central America has some of the most sophisticated small arms trafficking infrastructures and highest gun death rates in the world, accounting for a third of global homicides despite having only eight percent of the world population in 2024. Why, then, is this the only international region in which the National Rifle Association holds significant foreign investments?
The NRA also allocates an average of $40,000 per year for programmatic work abroad, described on tax forms as “publications, law enforcement training,” and occasionally “fundraising.” It should be noted that in contrast to its investment disclosures, these are itemised and reported in granular detail on tax filings – in one case from 2019, for example, the organisation reported expenditures of $14.00 for ‘fundraising’ in East Asia and the Pacific.
The relative specificity and accessibility of these expenditures juxtaposed with the remarkable generalisation of much larger investment accounts raises suspicions at AOAV that the NRA’s non-profit status under 501(c) may provide reporting loopholes, or that these funds might be categorised in a way that evades financial thresholds for detailed disclosure. The NRA has been previously implicated in scandals about inflows of foreign funds, including a 2016 Senate Report that deemed the association a ‘foreign asset’ for Russia. While little firm evidence exists to show any illegal activities with respect to outflows at this point, the inconsistencies and obfuscations in the disclosures discussed above do suggest potential efforts by the NRA to obscure the organisation’s international activities.
The NRA’s tax filings consistently include statements asserting that its offshore investments adhere to “industry standard best practices in risk management for national nonprofit institutional investors” and qualify that “income from passive investments, when appropriately structured, is excluded from unrelated business income by law.” Given their obfuscation and lack of transparency, however, this qualification appears aimed at normalising these investments and downplaying scrutiny.
Ties with International Arms Manufacturers
The NRA’s connections with international small arms manufacturers raise other concerns regarding its global influence. In 2022 alone, the organisation received $71.8 million in grants and private donations, most of which was derived from the group’s ‘corporate partners’. The vast majority of large arms manufacturers worldwide participate in the NRA’s ‘Golden Ring of Freedom’ programme, a fundraising initiative reserved for ‘leaders called to even greater giving’ that requires annual donations exceeding $1 million for membership.
According to a 2019 report from Open Secrets, a pioneering non-profit that tracks financial flows in U.S. politics – and the source of the NRA’s IRS forms throughout this report – international corporate gun producing members of the Golden Ring of Freedom include, but are not limited to, Glock (Austria), Beretta (Italy), Sig Sauer (Germany), and Taurus (Brazil). Taurus supports the organisation further by buying memberships to the NRA for each firearms purchaser in the United States.
Though these major funders of the NRA’s strategic initiatives and lobbying approaches are likely motivated in part by a desire to increase demand for weapons in the United States, it is also clear that these strong ties present obvious international inroads for the NRA as a facilitator between arms manufacturers and pro-gun groups on a global scale.
As the next section will explore, the NRA also acts as a go-between and source of strategic information for those seeking to deregulate gun markets internationally. We argue that the NRA maintaining close relationships with international private weapons companies subject to less strict financial disclosures plays an important role in furthering its international ambitions.
Regional Activities and Case Studies
Central America
The NRA’s multi-million-dollar investment accounts in Central America remain one of its most opaque activities and present the most compelling avenue for future investigative research. Despite limited information, these funds may be linked to facilitating small arms flows in a region where the majority of guns used in violent crimes are trafficked illegally from the United States. Reports suggest that the NRA might be utilising shell companies to manage these funds, raising suspicions of indirect involvement in the illicit trade of small arms.
Brazil
Brazil has long been a strategic priority for the NRA due to its strong domestic arms manufacturing industry and its potential as a counterpoint to arms control measures in the Global South. In 2005, the NRA played a strong advisory role in successfully lobbying against a referendum banning civilian small arms sales as a means of addressing escalating gun violence in the country.
Though the NRA provided no ‘direct funding’ in the campaign, the Director of the NRA himself travelled to Brazil to consult on strategies to defeat the ballot measure, and the organisation worked closely with local gun manufacturer Taurus Armas to leverage messaging strategies around government overreach and loss of fundamental rights. It did so with remarkable success.
The following loosening of Brazil’s gun laws was a major political victory for the NRA in that it demonstrated the applicability of the group’s policy playbook outside the United States, and a major relief for Brazilian arms manufacturers, who stood to lose tens of millions of dollars because of the legislation. The NRA maintains strong links with Taurus to this day as discussed above, and continues to garner material profits from Brazil’s deregulated arms market.
Canada
In Canada, the NRA maintains significant ties with pro-gun groups, such as the Canadian Institute for Legislative Action (CILA), which has publicly acknowledged the NRA’s logistical and strategic support. CILA representatives characterise the NRA as instrumental in its foundation and report relying on NRA support for importing and exporting firearms and ammunition. The NRA has also influenced Canadian gun policy debates, notably the repeal of Canada’s long-gun registry in 2012 through lobbying and public messaging campaigns. In an example of the NRA’s exerting subtle and financially-undisclosed foreign influence, the organisation bought ad time for ‘infomercials’ about the risks of repealing the Canadian registry on American National TV networks, with the knowledge that a majority of Canadians have access to those channels.
Furthermore, the NRA’s ideological influence extends to Canadian groups such as the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights (CCFR) and the National Firearms Association (NFA), both of which mirror NRA strategies in responding to high-profile shooting incidents and advocating for gun rights. The export of NRA political playbooks and American weapons may have had a deleterious impact on gun violence in Canada, where shootings have increased by 869% in the past two decades, though cause and effect is hard to prove.
Mexico
The NRA’s impact on Mexican politics and gun violence appears less direct than in the Brazilian or Canadian case, but arguably even more consequential from a public health perspective. As AOAV explored in a 2013 report, the organisation’s lobbying efforts in the United States have consistently and persistently argued against even the most basic measures intended to curb the illegal flow of guns across the southern border. Over 70% of firearms seized in Mexico from 2015-2020 originated in the United States, highlighting the NRA’s role in sustaining the cross-border arms trade for the economic gains it provides to the NRA and its corporate partners.
The Executive Director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, the organisation’s lobbying wing, was forced to address this longstanding issue before the United States House of representatives in 2009 where he denounced “a renewed effort to make American gun owners the scapegoats for [the] problem [of gun violence in Mexico]” and advocated for instead addressing the issue through a ‘strong border.’ Despite dramatic increases and border ‘strengthening’ in the sixteen years since his remarks, however, gun deaths have only increased south of the border.
The NRA’s economic interests implicit in high illicit gun ownership in Mexico, while less directly relevant to the focus of this report, highlights the organisation’s complicity in the major public health crisis that is gun violence in an international context, especially in Mexico and Central America. The organisation’s refusal to support stricter export controls with regards to small arms reflects its broader agenda of opposing any regulatory measures that could impede the interests of its corporate partners – not only in the United States but around the world.
Australia
Following Australia’s implementation of the National Firearms Agreement in 1996, the NRA has viewed the country as an example of government overreach. Despite limited success in influencing Australia’s gun policies, the NRA continues to criticise Australia’s regulations as “tyrannical,” attempting to undermine Australia’s restrictive stance as part of its broader narrative. It appears that following the aforementioned successes of the NRA in Canada, the organisation aimed to support pro-gun groups and implement its legislative lobbying playbook in a similarly individualistic, settler colonial, and English speaking context. Public sentiment in Australia, however, remains strongly supportive of gun control, and the NRA’s persistent attempts to bolster the country’s pro-gun lobby and portray mass shootings as isolated incidents rooted in mental health issues have largely failed to date.
South Africa
While the NRA’s activities in South Africa are less documented, the parallels between U.S. and South African motivations for gun ownership suggest an area ripe for further research. Limited evidence indicates NRA support for pro-gun narratives tied to big game hunting as a means of resisting gun control legislation. South Africa’s firearms policies, though increasingly restrictive, face ongoing challenges from lobbying groups implementing NRA-type playbooks, making it a potential area of interest for the organisation’s activity.
Opposition to Multinational Gun Control Efforts
The NRA’s resistance to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) exemplifies its focus on combating multinational gun control efforts regardless of forum. The NRA has maintained a presence at the United Nations since 1996, and presented fierce opposition any measure that could restrict civilian gun ownership in the multilateral sphere. In 2019, the NRA succeeded in influencing the Trump administration to withdraw the U.S. from the ATT, citing concerns over its potential impact on domestic gun rights. This victory points to the NRA’s priority of safeguarding international arms flows and global gun ownership, thus securing its own interests through benefiting its corporate partners.
The NRA has consistently positioned itself as an oppositional force within international forums, framing gun ownership as a safeguard against tyranny and a means of preventing genocides with little to no evidence of the veracity of their claims.
Despite the largely symbolic power of UN resolutions, AOAV argues that the NRA’s efforts in recent decades have effectively diluted and delayed global initiatives aimed at curbing small arms proliferation.
Recommendations
To advance understanding of the NRA’s international operations, AOAV recommends:
- Deepened Financial Analysis: Investigative journalists and financial experts should scrutinise the NRA’s Central American investments in particular and potential ties to the arms trade in general;
- Case Study Expansion: The NRA’s influence should be investigated in other regions, particularly in Africa and Asia, where current information is sparse;
- Policy Advocacy: The role of organisations like the NRA in undermining international arms control agreements to policymakers and links pro-gun advocacy groups needs to be examined in greater depth;
- Public Awareness Campaigns: The NRA’s narrative as a solely domestic organisation needs to be challenged in light of its global agenda.
Conclusion
The NRA’s international activities reveal a deliberate and wide-reaching effort to promote global gun deregulation, extending its influence well beyond the United States. Through opaque financial practices, including multi-million-dollar investments in Central America, strategic partnerships with international arms manufacturers, and advisory support for pro-gun advocacy groups, the organisation has positioned itself as a powerful force in shaping global gun ownership policies.
Despite publicly downplaying its international involvement, the NRA has actively worked to weaken arms control measures, resist regulatory frameworks, and contribute to the spread of small arms, often exacerbating violence in already vulnerable regions.
This report highlights the pressing need for greater scrutiny and accountability regarding the NRA’s global operations. Investigative efforts should focus on examining the organisation’s financial disclosures, its strategic interventions abroad, and its influence on international arms control agreements.
As the NRA continues to advance corporate and ideological goals at the expense of public safety, AOAV believes it is essential for policymakers, journalists, and civil society to collaborate in addressing its harmful impact and fostering greater transparency in the global arms trade. We do so without the immense financial backing of the NRA, but hope that our evidence of the harm of guns outweighs the claims to the contrary.
The NRA did not respond to AOAV’s request for comment.
Additional reporting was by Stephen Do Rego.
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