Taylor D. Rhodes

• Comment: Borderline. May be notable. Unclear if multiple sources provide multiple instances of significant coverage about Rhodes (in-depth analysis - more than passing mentions, interviews, quotes in his spokesman capacity) in published reliable independent secondary sources (RMGO, NAGN both primary). The Denver Westword piece appears to give SIGCOV but some of the other references provided are paywalled (WSJ) or unavailable from my location so their content cannot be verified. Multiple assertions are made but without inline citations. Paul W (talk) 17:57, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

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Taylor D. Rhodes
Taylor D Rhodes NAGR.jpg Taylor D Rhodes NAGR.jpg
Born	Fairfax, Virgina
🏫 Education	University of Southern Mississippi (BA) Liberty University MS
💼 Occupation	Communications Director for the National Association for Gun Rights Executive Vice President for BamaCarry
Known for	Gun rights activism
Honours	Kentucky Colonel

Taylor Rhodes (born 1994) is an American conservative political strategist and gun-rights activist. He is the director of communications for the National Association for Gun Rights and has served as executive vice president of BamaCarry, an Alabama gun-rights organization. Rhodes previously served as executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, a Colorado-based gun-rights advocacy organization.

Early life and education

Rhodes was born in Northern Virginia and spent his early years in Cleveland, Tennessee, where he graduated from Cleveland High School. He later attended the University of Southern Mississippi, where organizational biographies state that he founded the university’s College Republicans chapter, served as state treasurer of the Mississippi Federation of College Republicans and was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. He subsequently earned a master’s degree in marketing and public relations from Liberty University.

Political and advocacy career

Rhodes became involved in Republican politics while attending the University of Southern Mississippi. Biographical materials published by organizations with which he has worked state that his early political experience included work with the Republican National Committee, the Colorado Republican Party and political campaigns at the local, state and national levels. He founded Rhodes Consulting, a political consulting firm, in 2014 which has not been active since 2024.

Rhodes joined Rocky Mountain Gun Owners as a lobbyist in 2018. In July 2020, the organization appointed him executive director, succeeding Dudley Brown in the position while Brown remained president of the organization. Colorado Politics reported that Rhodes had represented the organization at the Colorado State Capitol and had been involved in its opposition to state gun-control legislation.

As executive director, Rhodes became one of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners’ principal public spokespeople and represented the organization in legislative debates and litigation concerning firearms laws. Under his leadership, the organization challenged municipal restrictions on semiautomatic firearms and magazines in Boulder County and several Colorado cities. Rhodes said the organization would sue local governments that enacted restrictions it considered unconstitutional.

Rocky Mountain Gun Owners also participated in challenges to Colorado’s restrictions on firearm purchases by adults younger than 21, the state’s three-day waiting period, its magazine-capacity limit and its regulation of unserialized firearms. Some of those cases produced temporary injunctions, while courts declined to block other laws. Rhodes characterized litigation as a central component of the organization’s strategy following the United States Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

A 2024 profile in Westword described Rhodes and Rocky Mountain Gun Owners as pursuing a “no-compromise” approach to firearm policy, combining legislative pressure with constitutional litigation. Rhodes argued that gun-rights organizations should be prepared to challenge laws in court rather than accept incremental restrictions through legislative compromise.

Rhodes later became communications director for the National Association for Gun Rights, where he has served as a spokesperson and overseen communications related to the organization’s political, legislative and legal advocacy. By May 2026, Alabama news organizations identified him as executive vice president of BamaCarry.

Views on gun rights

Rhodes has described the right to keep and bear arms as a natural or God-given right protected by the Second Amendment, rather than a privilege granted by the government. Responding to gun-control legislation signed in Colorado in 2023, he said constitutional freedoms were “guaranteed by God and then enshrined by our government.”

He supports a “no-compromise” approach to firearms legislation and has argued that gun owners should oppose new restrictions even when they are supported by Republican lawmakers. His advocacy has emphasized litigation, grassroots political pressure and the removal of existing firearm restrictions rather than negotiation over the scope of proposed regulations.

Rhodes has opposed bans on semiautomatic firearms and standard-capacity magazines, restrictions on firearm acquisition by adults between 18 and 20, waiting periods, background checks, the UN Arms Trade Treaty, regulations of privately manufactured firearms and measures that he believes could create firearm-registration systems. He has argued that such laws burden people who intend to use firearms for lawful self-defense while having little effect on people willing to obtain weapons illegally.

In opposing Colorado’s waiting-period law, Rhodes argued that delaying a constitutional right amounted to denying it during the period of delay. He also cited people facing an immediate threat, including victims of stalking or domestic violence, as examples of individuals who could be harmed by a mandatory waiting period.

Rhodes has also argued that gun rights apply regardless of a person’s partisan affiliation or membership in a politically controversial group. In 2025, he opposed proposals to categorically prevent transgender people from possessing firearms, arguing that group-based prohibitions could later be used against other disfavored groups. In 2026, speaking for the National Association for Gun Rights, he defended the legal right to carry a firearm while participating in a political protest and criticized attempts to treat the presence of a firearm as proof of criminal intent.

Other political views

Rhodes has been associated with far-right and Republican politics throughout his career. He held leadership positions in College Republicans, worked in Republican campaign politics and later represented conservative gun-rights organizations. His public advocacy has generally emphasized individual rights, constitutional limitations on government power and skepticism toward expanded firearm regulation.

Although aligned with the political right, Rhodes has criticized Republican officials whom he considers insufficiently supportive of gun rights. During his tenure at Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, the organization publicly graded and pressured Republican legislators as well as Democrats, and Rhodes argued that partisan affiliation should not shield officeholders from criticism over firearm policy. In 2021, the organization circulated a “no confidence” survey concerning Republican House Minority Leader Hugh McKean and publicly labeled Republican legislators as either “pro-gun” or “anti-gun.”

His public comments on firearms have often reflected a broader civil-libertarian position.

References

This article "Taylor Rhodes" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Taylor Rhodes. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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