With the House set to vote this week on the most significant gun measures to come before it in years, the NRA is mobilizing its army.
Inside the group's imposing, blue-glass-and-concrete office tower in suburban Fairfax, Va., the phone and fax lines are burning up with dire warnings to 2.9 million members that gun rights are about to be revoked by a Congress bent on repealing the Second Amendment.
Gun-control advocates view the proposals - for mandatory background checks at gun shows, a ban on assault-weapons sales to people under 21, and mandatory trigger locks with all handgun sales - as a relatively modest response to school shootings in Colorado and Georgia.
The NRA disagrees.
"The air [in Washington] is so thick with deceit and dishonesty about this gun scheme, only you can offset it with your action," the group said in a letter to its members, urging them to call and write their representatives in the House. "What the [gun] legislation would do is impose a cradle-to-grave massive federal regulatory scheme on gun owners throughout America - and that's no exaggeration!"
The NRA says it expects to spend at least $1.5 million on mailings, phone banks and full-page newspaper ads to block the gun-control proposals sponsored by Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D., N.J.) that passed the Senate on May 20 and face a vote in the House this week. NRA lobbyists are blanketing Capitol Hill; NRA Web sites offer weekly legislative "alerts" to members on developments in Washington and state capitols - along with lists of lawmakers who voted against the gun lobby.
If that's not enough, the NRA has one of the biggest political funds in Washington to help its allies and punish its opponents, contributing $1.6 million to last year's House and Senate races. It spent $2.5 million more on "independent" advertising, done separately from candidates' campaigns.
