Its rise has rattled the NRA leadership and threatens the association’s ability to hold on to moderate supporters and to make compromises that might help fend off tougher gun control measures, according to some of the two dozen gun-rights activists, policy experts and gun-control advocates interviewed for this story.
“Generally, they have a disproportionately huge amount of power in the gun-rights movement,” said Richard Feldman, a former NRA lobbyist.
Feldman hasn't been paying attention, and neither has the author. The "gundamentalist" faction goes all the way back to the 1977 NRA convention, when Harlon Carter and Neal Knox led the group of 2nd Amendment activists that seized control away from the squishy compromising types.