When I look at my own situation, in MN, our CCW law was passed without much help from the NRA proper,
That depends entirely upon what you mean by "much".
During the three years that I was involved, the NRA advertised our efforts, sent mailings to their members asking for their support, etc.
They had lobbyists at the Capitol, during at least the last two legislative sessions. Todd Adkins spent nearly a month, here, before the bill passed.
and I have no doubts that it would have passed even if the NRA didn't exist.
Perhaps, but it wouldn't have passed this year.
Look at the two critical Senate votes - the vote to send the bill to committee, and the vote to pass the bill - and look at who changed from one vote to the next.
We knew, if we could keep the bill from being sent to committee, we had a couple of Democrats who would simply have to vote for final passage of the bill, or kiss their political careers goodbye. But they felt perfectly free to vote to send the bill to committee, with the promise from the DFL Senate leadership that the revised bill would again reach the floor.
We knew, of course, that the DFL Senate leadership was lying through its teeth. And that voting the bill into committee would result in the bill being modified to restore arbitrary discretion.
But we did not have enough votes to keep the bill out of committee, until Todd Adkins arranged the deal: he convinced a couple of the Republicans who felt that they could not vote for the bill to vote against sending it to committee, recognizing that they'd vote against final passage.
And recognizing that when it came down to the final vote, we'd pick up enough DFLers to replace them.
It was Todd Adkins, the NRA-ILA State Liason who put the deal together. Without his last-minute legislative expertise, the bill would not have passed this year.
Yes, sometimes I get tired of how the NRA takes credit for what local organizations have done. And I am often pissed off at how it seems sometimes that the NRA's marketing efforts seem to serve primarily enriching the Mercury Group.
In Minnesota, the NRA was not the primary force in getting the bill before the legislature. We, the gun rights advocates of Minnesota did that. And it was we, in the caucuses, who put shall-issue in the MNGOP platform. And who made the difference in enough elections, through four election cycles, to create a pro-gun majority in both House and Senate.
And through all of this, the NRA provided some support. Not a great deal, and not terribly significant, but they provided some.
But despite all of that, we damned-near stalled again, for the third straight year. In 2001, if you remember, we were one vote short in the Senate. In 2002, we were tied. In 2003, we would have been one vote short, again, if hadn't been for Todd Adkins and the NRA.