This week the National Rifle Association is holding its annual convention in Indianapolis, and as usual there are many opportunities to show your financial support. Tickets to a country music concert start at $29.95, you can spend $7,500 for a table at an NRA Foundation auction, or attend a dinner supporting the group’s political and legislative work for $500.

The NRA claims the money it collects from members will help the organization fight tooth and nail for its “guns everywhere” agenda. A recruitment letter summarized the NRA’s sales pitch: “The NRA is the only Force For Freedom” standing in the way of a “plot to transform America into a ‘progressive,’ socialist, disarmed dystopia.”

But recent revelations make it clear that some NRA leaders are not putting their organization’s money where their mouth is. Last week brought news that NRA executives and insiders have steered hundreds of millions of dollars in lavish compensation and contracts to themselves, their friends and family, and favored vendors even as the NRA has run deficits for the last two years.

But, perhaps worse than its weak finances, the NRA is losing its grip on political power. After decades as a political kingmaker, the NRA has been unceremoniously deposed — and you don’t have to look far for examples.

Since last year’s mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, 23 states have bucked the NRA and passed gun safety laws — and nine of those states were led by Republican governors.

In the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, it became clear the NRA’s political support — which was once considered a badge of honor — is now a scarlet letter. Some Republican candidates who received NRA money gave it back, and the NRA scrubbed its website of old candidate grades because, as one employee put it, “our enemies were using that.”

On Election Day, the NRA’s worst fears were realized. Voters sent a gun-sense majority to the U.S. House of Representatives, and they also elected gun-sense governors and legislators to statehouses across the country.

But the NRA’s most telling political defeat came last month, when a bipartisan bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, also known as VAWA, was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The bill included common-sense measures to keep guns away from abusers, which made it a non-starter for the NRA. In a desperate attempt to prove that its scare tactics still work, the NRA sent Representatives a letter announcing it would be scoring the vote, which means the vote will be considered in future candidate ratings and endorsements.

Despite the NRA’s threat, the House defied the NRA and passed VAWA by a vote of 263 to 158 — and the winning tally included 33 Republicans.

This defection on the part of G.O.P. lawmakers represents an existential crisis for the NRA. After decades of portraying themselves as fierce defenders of virtually unlimited gun rights, NRA leaders are being abandoned by their most dedicated legislative foot soldiers.

NRA insiders are also starting to question the organization’s reliance on the currency of fear. Marion Hammer, the group’s most legendary lobbyist, recently revealed that she and other board members have “questioned the value” of NRATV, where many hosts delight in attacking women, gay people and immigrants while stoking unfounded paranoia that the Second Amendment is under attack.

So if the NRA is no longer a financial and political powerhouse, what is it besides a troubled business committed to enriching its executives and gun manufacturers? That’s the question still-loyal members and lawmakers should ask themselves the next time the NRA comes asking for another infusion of cash and credibility.

John Feinblatt is president of Everytown for Gun Safety.