Six months from now, as the shock of the "Dark Knight" shooting fades, America will likely have no new gun-control laws to prevent such tragedies from occurring again. The credit - or blame - for that inaction will belong to the National Rifle Association, one of America's strongest political interest groups.

How did the NRA gain such influence over American politics? Surprisingly, it happened overnight.

The NRA was founded after the Civil War by two Union soldiers - one of whom was a reporter for a newspaper known today for its opposition to gun rights, the New York Times - who thought the poor shooting skills of servicemen from the North unnecessarily prolonged the conflict. The NRA was formed to improve marksmanship training to better prepare American servicemen to fight future wars.

Although today's NRA is known for its antigovernment rhetoric - Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president, once called federal law enforcement officers "a jackbooted group of fascists" - the early NRA was weaned on government subsidies. Its first rifle range was financed by a government grant, and over the years the NRA has been singled out to purchase surplus military firearms at discounted prices.

In the early 1900s, the NRA began to flex its political muscle - in favor of gun control. NRA leaders helped draft the Uniform Firearms Act, a piece of model legislation enacted by dozens of states to restrict the carrying of firearms in public. The law required anyone who wanted to carry a concealed weapon to first obtain a permit and imposed a waiting period on the sale of handguns.

"I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons," said Karl Frederick, the organization's former president. "I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses."

The NRA also endorsed the first major federal gun-control law, the National Firearms Act of 1934. At congressional hearings, Frederick was asked if the Second Amendment was a bar to the law. His answer was, from today's vantage point, remarkable: "I have not given it any study from that point of view."

Frederick's opinion was that protection for gun rights, he wrote, was "not to be found in the Constitution."

For most of its history, the NRA completely ignored the Second Amendment. If you go through old issues of the NRA's signature publication, American Rifleman, from the 1940s and 1950s, you can read issue after issue without finding a single mention of the Second Amendment. The organization was focused on marksmanship and hunting, not shooting down gun control.

All that was before what is known in gun circles as the "Cincinnati Revolt" of 1977. The gun-control movement was gaining steam because of a large spike in urban crime rates. The leaders of the NRA decided to quit Washington politics and move the headquarters to Colorado Springs, where they could focus on outdoors activities and recreational shooting.

This enraged an emerging group of gun-rights hardliners who thought guns weren't primarily about hunting; they were for self-defense against criminals. Led by Harlon Carter, the hardliners secretly organized against the NRA's moderate leadership at the annual meeting of the membership in Cincinnati. Manipulating the rules of order, the hardliners staged a coup from the floor.

When the sun rose the next day, the entire leadership of the NRA had been replaced by strong advocates of the right to bear arms.

Rather than move to Colorado Springs, the new NRA built a larger headquarters in the Washington, D.C., area and made its central mission to fight against gun control. The hardliners' answer to gun violence wasn't more gun control. It was more guns. If only more law-abiding people were armed and prepared to fight back, then criminals wouldn't be able to so easily victimize Americans.

The new NRA became an important member of the New Right coalition that lifted Ronald Reagan to the presidency. Even after he was shot in 1981, Reagan insisted that gun control wasn't the answer. Gun control was, in the view of the new NRA, just another example of the failures of big government.

Playing on gun enthusiasts' love of firearms and the fear of crime, the NRA built a following as the only organization that would stop the government from coming to take their guns. And the leadership began to push for repeal of the restrictive concealed carry laws the NRA itself had once endorsed.

The NRA isn't satisfied with its powerful influence over domestic gun laws. In recent years, the organization has branched out, promoting its anti-gun-control efforts across the globe. Favorite targets of the NRA include the United Nations and international arms treaties. Although these laws are designed to reduce armed conflict, the NRA views them as burdens on the universal human right to own guns.

Today, membership in the NRA is rewarded with a subscription to American Rifleman. If you want to see how much the NRA has changed from its early days, just pick up a copy. You're sure to find the Second Amendment mentioned on nearly every page.