It is a very effective political entity, and I think it is a fundamental law of the universe that any political entity has at least a minimum number of morons in it.
As a Life Member, I vote against those I find are not supporting the true aims of the Second Amendment.
Freedom at work.
NRA's main backing and thrust has always been the rural and hunting folk;
And it likely always will be, but to continue to be successfull, that base must be expanded. A prime example of that is the counties won by Bush versus the counties wone by gore. On the map, a landslide, by the votes way too close for comfort. The "new" supporters of the 2nd amendment will eventually need to arise out if the commonly democratic strongholds of the metropolitan areas by some means, or I am afraid that eventualy, an organization such as the NRA will lose it's effectiveness.
it was not until after Dodd's GCA68 that the ILA was formed, and the NRA really started to support the Second, because up until that time there was no real opposition like the myriad gun control freaks we have today. And those freaks can never be allowed to win.
Slow typing from a second time dad bouncing his ~2 week old boy at 12:30 at night. Of course, my hunting and self defense guns are in house, no special license needed, (in a nice safe to keep the 2-year old out of) but if I want to carry CCW I need to convince the county Sherif that I have some special need, and one of his campaign platforms, was reducing the number of those.
I can't think of a better reason to be able protect me and mine anywhere than than this new guy and his big sister. But I must be some kind of a threat.