Its was disorganized, and lacking direction. The anti's felt emboldened, as they mistakenly felt the NRA's influence was waning. But their key error was the inability understand where the organization's political power comes from. Its not from the NRA's leadership, lobbyists, or money, its from gun owners. In autum of '94, gun owners didn't rely on the NRA's leadership to stop the Brady's, they took things into their own hands.
Here's a some clips from an article I dug up about the conflict going on inside the NRA, which is far from sympathetic.
http://www.franksmyth.com/A5584C/clients/franksmyth/frankS2.nsf/ad6eb2ddfbe72a8285256b6c00561193/e45165e76e92dfba85256b7b00790691?OpenDocument">Crossfire: The War Behind the Closed Doors of the NRAby Frank Smyth, June 1994
For three days of its annual convention last month the National Rifle Association (NRA) paraded its cheerful public face, showing off such varied supporters as actors Richard Roundtree and Paul Sorvino, baby-toting housewives, gospel singers, and an African American policewoman. And when that was done, the 123-year-old group convened its annual board of directors meeting in Ballroom D of the Hilton Hotel. Unbeknownst to the 74 directors, eight officers, and 25-odd NRA staff and VIP members assembled, the Voice was present, there to witness the inner workings of the most powerful single-issue lobby in the nation.
Most of the people in the room were beefy white men. And the atmosphere was tense. The NRA's eight executive officers sat behind banquet tables on a raised platform, looking down on the assembled board. The printed agenda called for reports by each executive officer -- but surprinsingly, all but the treasurer claimed to be unprepared. Lack of preparation, however, had nothing to do with it. Everyone was anxiously awaiting the nominating committee's report on its choice for the NRA presidency. Normally, this is matter of simple procedure, as the NRA rotates officers in an established order of succession. Tradition dictated that 1st Vice President Thomas L. Washington, a big-game hunter from Michigan, should be president next.
But this year was different, thanks to the behind-the-scenes maneuverings of NRA firebrand Neal Knox, who is far more powerful than his position as a board member would suggest. As the rumors swirling throughout the convention for days hinted, Knox had exercised his influence on the nominating panel. Instead of Washington, committee chair T.J. Johnston nominated 2nd Vice President Marion P. Hammer, a hard-nosed, 55-year-old grandmother who helped pass the law in Florida that allows modestly trained residents to carry loaded guns. The motion for Hammer was seconded and opened to discussion.
"This is nothing more than a total power struggle. It's a palace coup," Robert K. Brown protested to the board. As a hardline gun advocate, and the editor and publisher of the mercenary magazine Soldier of Fortune, Brown should know.
The internecine conflict was further evidence of the growing crisis at the NRA, which has 3.3 million dues-paying members and assets of $160 million. Last year, it spent a whopping $22.4 million on lobbying alone. The NRA supports political candidates who abide by its views, and mercilessly tries to punish those who don't. Its appetite for loyalty is insatiable: Republica senator Robert Dole, an NRA member and honored guest at its banquet in 1986, has been branded a traitor for softening on gun control.
Once considered the most powerful lobby in Washington, the NRA is on the defensive now. For decades, it has succeeded in crushing almost any form of gun control legislation, but the recent passage of the Brady law and the success of the "assault weapons" ban bill in both the House and Senate confront the NRA with its most severe challenge yet. The gun-owning community it purports to represent has split, with fissures between sport shooters and Second Amendment "fundamentalists" cracking visibly open for the first time. All major national law enforcement organizations have already withdrawn their support from the NRA. Dissent is also on the rise internally, with many of its, state associations directly challenging national leaders. Meanwhile, most dues-paying NRA members have little sense of how the organization is run .....
..... In the race for the NRA board of directors in 1991, Knox and his slate succeeded in winning 11 of 21 open seats, with nine more hard-liners led by Soldier of Fortune's Brown taking all but one that remained. Knox also enjoyed support among incumbents. Pugnacious and unapologetic, he was back .....
..... It is a measure of Knox's grip that, even in the midst of heated debate, not one elected director raised the substantive issues about his administration. Much of the criticism comes from other hard-line gun rights activists who believe that he is misinanaging, some say destroying, the NRA. This view is growing among state-affiliated NRA leaders, and even among veteran staff members of the organization .....
..... But apart from mismanagement, much of the criticism also has to do with the NRA's ardent defense of the Second Amendment. On this point, the gun-owning community that the NRA claims to represent is now split wide open. And some hunters, a potentially large group, believe that it's time the NRA returned to its sporting purpose -- promoting marksmanship, collecting, and other forms of gun-related recreation.
David E. Petzal, for one, thinks the present radicalization of the NRA is hurting the interests of gun owners. Petzal, who has given thousands of dollars to the NRA, writes the "Endangered Tradition" column in Field and Stream, another centenarian institution, many of whose 2 million readers are also in the NRA. This June, the magazine made a landmark decision to break with the NRA. "it took tremendous courage," says executive editor Petzal.
"The bugle call known as reveille is a cheerful, energetic tune that, when I was in the Army, few soldiers actually got to hear," he writes in an editorial. "Real-world reveille came for gun owners this February," in the form of the assault weapons ban. Petzall like the NRA, believes that this legislation is too broad. This is partly because it would ban weapons like "the AR-15/M-16, and the MIA in modified
form, which are highly accurate, and have a legitimate place in organized target competition."
But assault weapons are also implicated in terrible acts of violence, like the Stockton, California, shooting in which a deranged man killed five children and wounded 29 others using a semiautomatic AK-47 clone. "Gun owners -- all gun owners -- pay a heavy price for having to defend the availability of these weapons," writes Petzal. "The American public -- and the gun-owning public; especially the gun-owning public -- would be better off without the hardcore military arms, which puts the average sportsman in a real dilemma" Petzal concludes by advocating compromise, something that Knox and other members of his regime say they will never accept ..... Notice how the VPC's Sugarmann had succeeded not only in playing on the ignorance of the public and press about "assault weapons," but had split the NRA itself. Just imagine where we'd be at today had this been anything other than a limited and temporary setback.
..... The NRA is bleeding -- but like any wounded beast, it is likely to be more dangerous now than before. Knox's radicalism may not win him any friends in Congress, but incendiary rhetoric is still a force to reckon with .....
It seems the champaign corks were starting to pop at the demise of NRA.
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