Robert Corbin, a former NRA president and Arizona attorney general, died of natural causes on Sept. 9, 2025, at 97 years old.
“Bob will be missed by all for his dedication and service to his country, his state and the NRA,” said Buz Mills, a fellow member of the NRA executive council. “A great leader and mentor, Bob is irreplaceable. We are diminished.”
Corbin was born Nov. 17, 1928, in the small town of Worthington, Ind. He joined the United States Navy in 1946. Two years later, he began studying accounting and worked as a court bailiff to pay for law school. He moved to Arizona in 1957 to pursue his law career and hobby of searching for the legendary Lost Dutchman mine.
He joined the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in 1958 and was elected to the top job in 1964. He prosecuted Ernesto Miranda in a case that drew national attention after the U.S. Supreme Court had thrown out Miranda’s first conviction, ruling he had not been advised of his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. Yet Corbin obtained Miranda’s conviction, an outcome considered unlikely by legal experts at the time.
In 1972, voters elected Corbin to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and in 1978 to state attorney general, a role to which he was re-elected twice before retiring in 1991. Under Corbin, the office maintained a 95-percent conviction rate, reflecting his tough-on-crime outlook.
After leaving public office, Corbin became president of the National Rifle Association in 1992, where he emphasized an uncompromising stance against gun control and grew membership from 2.4 million to 3.4 million. He also prioritized aggressive Congressional lobbying in an unapologetic defense of the Second Amendment.
“The perception today is that guns are evil and people who own guns are evil,” Corbin once told a reporter. “I have been in law enforcement all my professional career, and I don’t think I’m evil.”
Corbin is survived by his second wife, three daughters and two grandchildren.
