WASHINGTON -- After years of drift and disarray, the National Rifle Association finds itself right where many of its leaders want it to be: under attack.
The organization has found new life, members and money through mass mailings that portray gun owners and sportsmen as being under siege. Two weeks after the last funeral for a victim in the high school shootings at Littleton, Colo., the NRA sent letters to its 2.6 million members, warning that President Clinton would "demand that you pay the price for the insanity of the killers."With the threat of new gun control measures being voted next week by the House of Representatives, checks are flowing into the organization, which for decades had been one of the most influential and feared single-issue advocacy groups. Its members have hit congres- sional offices with a blizzard of e-mail messages and phone calls opposing new gun restrictions. At the state level, the rifle association is pushing legislation to prohibit municipal lawsuits against the gun industry.
Since the early 1990s, the NRA has been struggling with a heavy debt, rebellions within its ranks and declining membership and revenues. Its image was battered after the Oklahoma City bombing, when the group was accused of being a bastion for right-wing extremists, and again after a recent series of school shootings that have helped transform the gun-control debate into a children's safety issue.
Its vaunted ability to win elections and oust enemies came into question when several of its closest congressional allies lost races last year. And in April, the NRA failed to persuade Missouri voters to approve a pro-gun ballot referendum, despite spending $3.7 million.
In the two months since Littleton, the 127-year-old association asserts that its membership has grown by tens of thousands and that its contributions have increased sharply.
The new money will bolster a $20 million lobbying and political fund that the group uses to lavish campaign contributions on its loyal supporters and to punish its enemies in state and federal elections across the country.
Since Memorial Day, the group, through its sophisticated direct-mail and phone banks operations, has mobilized its members to call and write their congressional representatives, who are considering the most comprehensive set of gun-control initiatives since the assault-weapons ban in 1994.
The barrage seems to be working. In recent days, many members of the House have stiffened their resolve to oppose any new gun-control measures. And some of the precise provisions that the NRA has demanded -- provisions that would weaken the bills -- have already appeared in House Republican versions of the legislation.
"Adversity is not our worst enemy," said James Jay Baker, the organization's chief lobbyist. "Our obituary has been published before."
In the coming week, the NRA will face a crucial test of its influence in Washington as the House votes on several gun-control measures like requiring background checks of gun buyers at gun shows and raising the minimum age for buying a gun to 21 from 18.
But Capitol Hill is just one of several battlefronts for the NRA. It is working in state legislatures across the country against new gun restrictions and for bills that would prohibit cities from suing gun manufacturers. Its leadership is struggling to balance between conservatives who think the group has been too conciliatory and gun company executives who think that it has been too uncompromising.
And, as always, the organization is trying to counter what it considers unfairly negative portrayals of it in the national media -- like Rosie O'Donnell's recent criticism of one of her guests, actor Tom Selleck, for supporting the NRA.
The question now is whether the group can juggle so many conflicts at a time when its resources are already spread thin and its membership has dipped precariously close to a 20-year low point. To its loyal members, the answer is clear.
"This is a rallying cause," said former Rep. Gerald Solomon, a lifetime NRA member from New York. "They rally together just like the Serbs support Milosevic."