Because it's not a hot seller, it's a loser. So instead of advertising directly on guns, they're throwing millions at ads that never even mention the word. This is a pattern for the NRA, not an anomaly, dating all the way back to the '94 midterm elections. Even on the NRA's own site, video spots targeted at members don't talk about the evils of background checks. Instead, they do a lot of fear mongering, particularly on the topics of terrorism and ISIS, and then extoll the virtues of owning a gun and the right to protect yourself. In other words, it can't even demonize background checks among its own members because if it did, that would begin to expose it as the fringe organization it is.

As this Vanity Fair article recently observed, there's a growing divide between the organization's actual members and the forces that are really controlling the NRA:

The N.R.A.’s largest donors today are the world’s major gun, ammunition, and firearms-accessory manufacturers. [...] according to a 2013 study by the non-profit Violence Policy Center, a significant part of that money is provided by a small core of large firearms-industry donors. The study reported that among the contributors of at least a million dollars each to the N.R.A. were the Italian family-owned gun company Beretta, Smith & Wesson, Brownells, Pierce Bullet Seal Target Systems, and Springfield Armory.

So the NRA is just a wolf in sheep's clothing, pretending to be a grass roots operation that represents gun owners—85 percent of whom support universal background checks—while actually doing the bidding of weapons manufacturers.

And those weapons manufacturers must be running scared this election. Hillary Clinton has a long record of supporting gun safety measures dating back to the ‘90s when she recorded a robocall that helped Handgun Control, Inc. (now the Brady Campaign) defeat a concealed-carry measure in Missouri. Clinton has also raised the issue repeatedly on the campaign trail following last year's massacre in Charleston, the point-blank killings of two Virginia journalists, and other tragedies, including the recent Orlando attack.

In fact, the differences between Clinton and the NRA-endorsed Trump couldn't be more stark. Trump advised that arming people in an alcohol-laden environment like a night club was the answer to heading off future massacres like the one in Orlando.

Unfortunately for the NRA, while Trump may be a rabid NRA supporter, he's also a spectacularly crappy candidate. His total lack of political sophistication has now put reliably red states like Arizona and even Georgia in play, not to mention giving Democrats a real opening in multiple battleground states. And it's not just his message that’s plaguing Trump, it's a total lack of infrastructure that has left him woefully behind in the ad war—to the tune of $20 million.

Just look at a state like North Carolina, where he has one staffer to Clinton's 60-plus and hasn't put a single dollar into combatting her advertising blitz. Tellingly, Hillary and President Obama will be debuting together next week not in Wisconsin, as originally planned, but in the Tar Heel State alongside the Democratic candidates for governor and U.S. Senate (Roy Cooper and Deborah Ross, respectively). That's a sign of confidence when a campaign uses its top surrogate to open up a new offensive rather than shoring up votes in battleground states. Team Clinton, in other words, is expanding the map.

By contrast, Trump is finally venturing to states like Colorado, trying to button up battle ground territory rather than putting new states in play for Republicans.

The fact that the NRA is pouring $2 million into the battleground states of CO, OH, NV, VA, and PA suggests they’re trying to make up for a candidate deficit that's been splashed all over news outlets for the past month. The buy is also reportedly one of the largest to date made by an outside group on behalf of Trump—meaning other groups either don’t have the cash or, more likely, aren’t keen to waste it on such a terrible bet.

So why is the NRA taking the plunge? Because the deadliest mass shooting in history just occurred, Democrats are pressing the issue by forcing gun votes (even if they're unsuccessful), and if Hillary Clinton is elected president, the appetite might actually exist to pass completely obvious and reasonable safety measures like background checks.

In the NRA's view, that's positively frightening. And their leadership is clearly desperate enough to squander $2 million on what—at least presently—appears to be a fool’s errand.