NEW YORK — Oliver L. North, who became a household name in the 1980s for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal, will become the next president of the National Rifle Association, the gun rights organization said Monday.
“Oliver North is a legendary warrior for American freedom, a gifted communicator, and skilled leader. In these times, I can think of no one better suited to serve as our President,” said Wayne LaPierre, the organization’s chief executive.
North, 74, a former Marine Corps lieutenant colonel and aide to President Ronald Reagan, said he would take the helm of the organization in a few weeks. He will succeed Pete Brownell, who was elected last year and announced Monday morning that he would not seek election to a second term.
“I appreciate the board initiating a process that affords me a few weeks to set my affairs in order, and I am eager to hit the ground running as the new NRA President,” North said in the statement.
North emerged in 1986 as a central figure in the Iran-Contra affair, in which the Reagan administration used the proceeds from the secret sale of arms to Iran to aid rebel forces in Nicaragua. The nationally televised testimony North provided to Congress the following year transfixed the nation.
In 1989, North was convicted of destroying government documents, accepting an illegal gratuity, and aiding and abetting in the obstruction of Congress.
He successfully fought those convictions, getting them reversed in 1991 after prosecutors concluded they could not prove that the witnesses who testified against him weren’t influenced by his congressional testimony, for which he was granted immunity.
In recent years, North has been active as a political commentator, author and television host. He said Monday he would retire from Fox News, where he was a contributor and hosted a documentary series titled “War Stories with Oliver North.”
In a separate development Monday, a judge ordered the accused gunman in the Tennessee Waffle House shooting to undergo an outpatient mental health evaluation.
Travis Reinking, 29, is facing multiple charges, including four counts of criminal homicide and four counts of attempted criminal homicide in connection with the April 22 attack in which four people were killed and four others injured.
He fled the scene after a customer wrested the AR-15 away from him and threw it over a counter, police said. Reinking was captured the next day after a police search that lasted more than 24 hours.
Reinking’s public defender Monday asked that the suspect be given an outpatient mental health evaluation before proceeding with the court case. Davidson County General Sessions Judge Michael Mondelli granted the request and said lawyers should come back in three weeks for a status hearing.
Reinking was not in court. He is being held in the Metro Nashville Jail without bond.
The public defender did not speak to reporters afterward.
Reinking was detained by the Secret Service in July after he ventured in to a forbidden area on the White House grounds and demanded to meet President Trump.
The man hailed as a hero for wrestling the assault-style rifle away Reinking has raised more than a quarter of a million dollars for the victims.
James Shaw Jr., 29, was dining with a friend at the Nashville restaurant when a gunman wearing only a jacket opened fire outside with an AR-15 rifle and then stormed the Waffle House, police said.
Shaw set a funding campaign goal of $15,000 to offer modest financial support to the victims. As of Monday, he said, the campaign had received more than 6,000 donations totaling $227,000.
Also Monday, more two dozen gun violence survivors and activists took part in a rally at the Capitol to call for changes in US gun laws.
Speakers called on Congress to take immediate action to curb gun violence, including expansion of background checks and banning assault-style weapons.
A report issued Monday by the Center for American Progress, a liberal advocacy group, said gun violence has surpassed motor vehicle accidents as a leading killer of young people in the United States, second only to drug overdoses.
A total of 11,947 ages 15 to 29 died as a result of gun violence in 2016, compared with 10,881 killed in vehicle-related incidents, the report said.
Aalayah Eastmond, 17, said she hid beneath the lifeless body of a classmate as a gunman opened fire at her Parkland, Fla., high school in February.
‘‘No student should have to literally dodge bullets to survive,’’ Eastmond recalled Monday, ‘‘but I was that student. No student should have to have body matter of her classmate picked out of her hair, but I was that student.’’