NRA’s Still Flexing Its Muscle as Some Question Its Influence

WASHINGTON —  The National Rifle Assn., its opponents say, is broke, shedding members, losing influence, in full retreat.

As evidence of the gun lobby’s waning power, opponents cite the NRA’s inability to overturn the ban on assault weapons and the organization’s decision not to endorse a candidate in the presidential election this year--in essence, acquiescing in the reelection of President Clinton.

“The National Rifle Assn. is in very severe difficulty,” said Robert Walker, legislative director for Handgun Control Inc. “Its political clout has certainly diminished, and its very future is in doubt.”

If that were the whole story, it would mark a startling turnabout from 1994, when NRA money and muscle was decisive in delivering Congress into Republican hands.

But it’s not the whole story.

The 2.8-million member NRA is actively engaged in 10,000 political races in every jurisdiction in the nation, with a special emphasis on about 200 critical contests.

If the GOP retains control of the House, the NRA, with its $5-million arsenal of direct mail, billboards, radio advertising and Internet communications, will bear a large share of responsibility.

The gun organization may seem quiescent this year, but it is operating below the sights of the national media and saving its fire for the final days of the campaign, as is its custom.

“I’ve heard this refrain many times,” said Tanya Metaksa, the NRA’s chief lobbyist, referring to claims that the organization was on its last legs. “The rumors of our demise are premature and misguided.”

Metaksa said the NRA would be active in races down to the local level from coast to coast, with particular emphasis on the House and Senate and state ballot initiatives that limit hunting.

At the presidential level, the lobby will remain officially neutral, she said. But although the NRA refused to formally endorse GOP candidate Bob Dole because of his insufficient enthusiasm for repealing the federal ban on certain assault weapons, there is no mistaking the organization’s preferences.

In all of its communications to members, the NRA tells them that the stake in the November election is nothing less than the future of the 2nd Amendment, the constitutional provision that guarantees the right to keep and bear arms.

In an Internet newsletter called “NRA Grassfire!” distributed in mid-October, the organization described Clinton as the “most anti-gun president in American history” and referred to Dole as “the only viable alternative.”

Although Dole’s “statements in recent months have raised serious doubts about his own credentials as a defender of the 2nd Amendment,” he remains “the clear choice,” the newsletter concluded.

“That’s not really an endorsement,” Metaksa insisted. “We’re just telling the membership that that’s the choice you have.”

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For Congress, however, the NRA is less coy. It urges its members to work to keep a “2nd Amendment majority” in Congress--which, with very few exceptions, means to elect Republicans.

The organization intends to spend roughly as much this year as it did in 1994--about $5 million--most of it in the three weeks before election day.

The vast preponderance--between 80% and 85%--of the NRA’s spending this election cycle will be on behalf of Republicans, according to analyses of 1995-96 expenditures to date.

“They have enormous reach, tons of mailing lists, a lot of [World Wide] Web-heads, tie-ins with other right-wing groups,” said a senior Democratic official who insisted on anonymity. “They make very good use of high technology that slips under the radar, as well as mass mail and faxes to mobilize their base constituency.”

Despite the NRA’s heavy political agenda this fall, many critics contend the organization is struggling financially and losing much of its legendary clout.

Dave Edmondson, a disaffected former NRA board member who publishes a critical newsletter about the gun lobby, said that the NRA’s net worth has plummeted from $113 million to negative $43.5 million since 1990.

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Edmondson said the money had been squandered on a lavish new headquarters building in suburban Virginia, a new computer system and a $100-million membership drive that brought in about 1 million new members, many of whom have since dropped out.

Membership now stands at about 2.8 million, from a peak of 3.5 million two years ago.

“The reason is that, starting four or five years ago, their lobbying tactics went from moderate-conservative, trying to work with people in Congress, to the no-compromise approach they’ve now taken,” Edmondson argues. “The result is, we [gun owners] haven’t won many battles since then.”

Wayne R. LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA, disputes Edmondson, saying that the NRA had a positive net worth even after spending tens of millions of dollars to modernize facilities and bring in new members. He acknowledged, however, that membership was down substantially and that the organization was reducing headquarters staff by 25%--to 400 workers from 540 as part of a planned “downsizing.”

He said that gun owners were “apathetic” about politics this year, in part because of their success in electing a Republican Congress two years ago.

“People try to say that [declining membership] means people are running from the NRA, but really it is because our membership is threat responsive,” LaPierre said.

“When threatened, they rally to the NRA,” he added. “If President Clinton wins a big victory and the House and Senate change to be less pro-2nd Amendment, our membership will shoot back up again.”