I like the picture of Wayne LaPierre in the Guardian a lot, McGrath.

The thing that you probably don't understand, and most people don't, is that the NRA lobbying is purely and simply about money.

Most Americans don't either have or want guns. Most of the ones who have them don't have problems with gun control legislation(though you wouldn't know it). However, the gun manufacturers makes a ton of money marketing assault rifles, and even more on the ammo.
They are the ones behind the NRA efforts, not the NRA membership. They pump millions of dollars into to organization to support it's efforts.

The gun manufacturers look at the large percentage of Americans who don't have guns as an untapped market, and they recognize that fear sells guns. To draw a fairly tasteless parallel, every time there's a killing, they make a killing.