The guy who is stepping up to fill Helmke's position, Dennis Henigan, is a lawyer with about 3 decades of experience--mostly experience suing gun manufacturers, retailers, and owners, in his monomaniacal jihad against 2A rights int he US.
He is currently head of Brady's "Legal Action Project", and has been raking in the dough in that position suing gun manufacturers and retailers in connection to far-flung lawsuits attempting to hold them responsible for firearms-related deaths and injury perpetrated by criminals and stupid, negligent people.
He may not have the "recognition" that Helmke has, but Henigan is definitely "connected", and has argued cases in front of several US District Courts, as well as state courts all over the nation. He is an "anti-2A insider" of the most dangerous type, because he is a trial lawyer, and already is known and recognized by many jurisdictions as an "authority".
Helmke leaving is a good thing. Don't get me wrong. He will most likely go back to Fort Wayne, IN and run for mayor again, a city so saturated in violent crime, unemployment, and drugs that it makes Baltimore MD look like Mr Rogers neighborhood. What we see as a good thing, will most likely be a "death knell" for Ft. Wayne. The LAST thing they need--with unemployment over 10%, drug and violent crime on the rise, and a decimated industrial base--is a fruitbat like Helmke at their helm. His leadership of Ft.Wayne from 1987 to 1999 saw crime skyrocket to a point that Ft. Wayne (despite the fact it has a population well under a quarter million) had violent crime stats closer to cities like LA, DC, and Detroit. Helmke leaving Brady is good for us, but woe-betide the poor law-abiding citizens of Ft. Wayne Indiana if he returns to the political stage there...
But Henigan is an experienced anti-2A lawyer. And that does not bode well for the future of gun rights in the US. I think we can expect a MAJOR change in tactics with Brady. Instead of lobbying, PR and media manipulation, I believe we can expect a shift toward an inundation of legal activity from Brady. My guess is that Mr. Henigan is going to spend the majority of Brady's coffers on filing anti-2A lawsuits nationwide--to throw a monkey wrench into the progress being made by groups like SAF on the restoration of 2A rights.
Make no mistake, Henigan is a threat--a much more devious, quiet, and insidious threat than Helmke, but a threat none the less. Henigan is going to attempt to bankrupt the pro-2A movement, as well as retailers and manufacturers through an avalanche of drawn-out lawsuits, mark my words...
The battle lines have shifted--they KNOW they can't win the PR war any more because the People are waking up to their lies. They know that their only chance is to pick the pockets of the 2A movement, so that we can no longer attack the anti-2A policies of cities, states, and the Fed in the courts.
And also, such a change in tactics takes the 2A movement out of the grasp of the "grass roots", and puts it entirely in the rarefied realm of the State and Federal Courts--a venue that most citizens have no access to, no experience with, and no influence over.
Yeah, the folks over at the Brady Campaign are crazy--crazy like a fox...
They've finally realized that "chasing the chickens" (public relations and propaganda) isn't working. So now, they are going to just start eating the eggs (mounting a shotgun-approach legal assault in the courts).