I. Under Assault

The packed crowd in the convention hall, lit by red, white, and blue floodlights overhead, listened expectantly to the boyish executive onstage. He asked a question: “If you’re at home and someone kicks in your door and tries to murder you and your family”—the applause was already starting—“should you have the right to defend yourself with a firearm?” Warming to his message, members attending the 145th annual meeting of the National Rifle Association of America, last May, in Louisville, began to roar. Perhaps their feelings were pent up because of the rain outside, or the extra-long lines that had kept them waiting in it, or because the featured speaker of the day, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, was rumored to be running late. But the question, from Chris Cox, the executive director of the N.R.A.’s Institute for Legislative Action, was only the beginning.

“After eight years of dishonesty, corruption, and failure,” he continued, America had become unrecognizable. It had been “twisted” and “perverted” by the mainstream media and politicians. “Who are kids supposed to respect?” he asked the audience. “The media tells them that Bruce Jenner is a national hero for transforming his body” but ignores the veterans whose bodies have been transformed by war. He took repeated aim at Hillary Clinton and told the crowd to “get over it” if their preferred candidate in the Republican primary had not won. The most important thing was to elect a pro-gun president in the coming election, one who would fight for the Second Amendment. As he wound up and prepared to introduce the next speaker, Wayne LaPierre, the long-serving C.E.O. of the N.R.A., Cox offered this message to Hillary Clinton: “You want to turn this election into a do-or-die fight over the Second Amendment? Bring. It. On.” Cox received a standing ovation. Later in the day, Donald Trump would receive the N.R.A.’s endorsement.

No such fighting words, or anything remotely like them, had been on offer a few months earlier at another N.R.A. event, this one at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center, in Harrisburg. Set amid the rolling hills and farmland of south-central Pennsylvania, the Great American Outdoor Show presented a more idyllic scene. Attendees could fish in an artificial trout pond, watch archers perform, or go to a session on “better wild-game cooking.” Children begged their parents for funnel cakes. Couples paged through brochures for hunting cabins. Mennonite teenagers took turns at a small shooting range, where N.R.A. volunteers handed out safety goggles. Rocking chairs offered a place to rest some of the 200,000 people who would visit during the course of the show. The complex is busy year-round with events such as the Penn National Horse Show, the Keystone International Livestock Exposition, and the American Rabbit Breeders Association. This outdoor show seemed of a piece with the others, except for the N.R.A.’s less-than-subtle effort to troll for new members. The N.R.A. took over the organization of the show three years ago, and at the door N.R.A. representatives dressed in hunting jackets stood alongside a sign advertising, in large red lettering, FREE ADMISSION to anyone who bought a $35 annual membership. Inside, the N.R.A. maintained a booth for its Eddie Eagle program, a safety effort aimed at children. Neither Cox nor LaPierre was in attendance in Pennsylvania to deliver a fiery call to arms.

The difference between the two events—the one in Louisville and the one in Harrisburg—highlights a fundamental characteristic of the National Rifle Association: the vast and widening difference between its activist and angry leadership, on the one hand, and its mostly calm members on the other, many of whom don’t know precisely what the N.R.A. is advocating in their name. It is a characteristic that has been little reported and that could have immense political significance, if gun-control forces start taking it seriously. The N.R.A. today finds itself needing to compete for money, for members, for loyalty, and even for issues and influence.

The N.R.A. is weaker than it wants anyone to know.

The group’s very identity is up for grabs. The N.R.A. has historically represented the buyers of guns, not the sellers—that role has been played by another group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation—but its allegiance is shifting. The N.R.A.’s largest donors today are the world’s major gun, ammunition, and firearms-accessory manufacturers. The N.R.A. notes proudly that it receives the bulk of its revenue—in 2014 it was $310 million—from membership dues (the group claims to have five million members) and from other contributions. It conveys the impression that it is a grassroots operation, like the Bernie Sanders campaign. But 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. MidwayUSA, an online retailer of hunting products, including ammunition and high-capacity magazines, has participated in a program since 1992 that offers customers an option to round up their purchases to the nearest dollar and donate the difference to the N.R.A. Through this program, MidwayUSA and other gun-industry companies have helped build an N.R.A. endowment balance of more than $14 million.