GO AHEAD, MAKE OUR DAY

By Jill Smolowe

Ray guzman is just the sort of person you'd trust with a gun. Three years ago, after buying a weekend home in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania, Guzman decided to take up hunting. But before he bought his 12-gauge Remington shotgun, he enrolled in a National Rifle Association safety course. "I didn't want to be a hypocrite as a firearm owner who doesn't practice firearm safety," he said. But now Guzman, 41, a sign-shop owner, is thinking of quitting the organization. While he supports the N.R.A.'s education programs, he is disturbed that in the midst of public anxiety about antigovernment violence, the N.R.A. is plowing ahead with its campaign to repeal the federal ban on assault weapons. And he takes issue with the N.R.A. fund-raising letter that called federal officials "jackbooted government thugs," the language that prompted former President Bush to quit the N.R.A. "George Bush has really opened my eyes," says Guzman. "The N.R.A. is too much to the right."

David Dunklee, on the other hand, feels a renewed pride in the N.R.A. now that its focus has shifted from sporting issues to a zealous defense of gun ownership. Like many N.R.A. members, he fears that the citizenry's right to bear arms has been sorely challenged by such incidents as the 1993 federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and the 1992 standoff between Randy Weaver and federal agents at Ruby Ridge in Idaho. "There should be more investigation. The government needs to explain itself more fully," says Dunklee, a range instructor in Phoenix, Arizona. He has been an N.R.A. member since 1989, but only recently felt passionate enough to pay $500 for a lifetime membership. "If you can't protect yourself and the police can't either," he says, "then you're in trouble."

On the surface, the N.R.A. would appear to be the one in trouble, with its house divided, its behavior widely condemned, its membership perceived as kooky, its legislative agenda upended by such defeats as the Brady Bill and the assault-weapons ban. But in fact the n.r.a. is making a powerful comeback, as a more militant organization. While it has increasingly alienated a majority of America's gun owners, not to mention the public at large, the N.R.A. has attracted a more radical following that is willing to give money and work vigorously toward the organization's goals.

Armed with an increasingly combative message that posits a tyrannical government as its main adversary, the 124-year-old organization is at peak power. Annual revenues for 1994 stood at $148 million, up 16% over the prior year, and membership has surged to a record 3.5 million members. "That's twice as many as the Christian Coalition," boasts Arizona sheriff Richard Mack. At the same time, the N.R.A. has developed a grass-roots network of political activists that, at a time of low voter turnout, is inspiring a new level of fear on Capitol Hill. "We have a political system that rewards intensity," says Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution. "The only way you overcome that is to match their intensity with an intensity among those on the other side, and in the gun debate that has not happened."

The N.R.A.'s enhanced clout is largely the work of a militant alite within the N.R.A.'s 76-member board, most notably second vice president Neal Knox and chief lobbyist Tanya Metaksa, who cheerfully helps those who have trouble spelling her name: "It's 'ak' as in AK-47, and 'sa' as in semiautomatic." To foment a crisis atmosphere, this new breed of leaders has pushed the N.R.A. toward extreme, uncompromising positions, such as its defense of cop-killer bullets and denunciation of efforts to mark explosives for ready identification. As inflexible in their interpretation of the Second Amendment as Christian Fundamentalists are in their reading of the Bible, the militants trumpet each political and legislative setback as a potentially lethal assault on the right to bear arms.

It has proved a winning strategy. The largest membership surges followed two legislative defeats: the 1993 Brady Bill, which imposed a five-day waiting period on the purchase of handguns, and the 1994 ban on 19 categories of assault weapons. "The n.r.a. has been predicting imminent doom and practically the elimination of weapons for years," says Robert Spitzer, author of The Politics of Gun Control. "Now there was a real threat that provided a galvanizing force for opposition, and that helped pump up their membership."

The tough-as-bullets strategy was in evidence again last week in Phoenix, where 20,000 of the faithful converged for the N.R.A.'s annual convention and gun show. This time the N.R.A. was under siege for strident rhetoric that seemed grossly insensitive in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. While Bush's resignation prompted N.R.A. executive vice president Wayne LaPierre to issue a qualified apology for his inflammatory language in the March fund-raising letter, the N.R.A. was largely unabashed. Knox dismissed Bush's action as "a petty political payback because we didn't endorse him in 1992." Among the rank and file, the reaction was downright glee and a scramble for Bush's membership number. "My phones have been ringing off the wall," gloated field representative H. Dean Hall. "The best was the gal who said, 'I don't even own a gun, but I want to take George Bush's place.'"

Members openly scoffed at two blistering statements from President Clinton last week, one of which demanded that the N.R.A. "put the money where their mouth is" and contribute the "ill-gotten gains" from the fund-raising letter, estimated at $1 million, to a police benevolent fund. In a Saturday session of its convention, N.R.A. president Tom Washington ridiculed Clinton, drawing laughs with the comment: "If you know me at all, you know how deeply hurt and even offended I am that Bill Clinton may not like us very much." Still, the N.R.A. was feeling Clinton's heat. LaPierre defensively pounded the message that "we do not do battle with bullets; we fight with ballots." And he warned, "The eyes of history are upon us. Be worthy of the scrutiny."

In the N.R.A.'s new realm of conspiracy theories, attacks like Clinton's serve only to spur growth. "Bill Clinton is the best recruiting tool we've got," says Ronald Phillips, chief of the N.R.A.'s Colorado unit. If a state of siege is good for the N.R.A., things only got better last week. The Secret Service barred the N.R.A. from participating in its annual shooting competition, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police decided to ban N.R.A. ads from its monthly magazine, Police Chief. "We are outraged at the N.R.A.'s repeated, slanderous rhetoric against federal agents," says John Whetsel, the group's president. "Such attacks cannot help but suggest that the N.R.A. leadership is anti-law enforcement."

Indeed the N.R.A. has drifted far from the center of the group it purports to represent. In a TIME/CNN poll of 600 gun owners last week, 68% disapproved of the harsh language used in the March fund-raising letter. Only 47% said they support N.R.A. positions in general, down sharply from 67% in a similar TIME/CNN poll in 1989. Only 24% of gun owners in the current poll support the N.R.A.'s No. 1 legislative agenda, a repeal of the 1994 assault-weapons ban. The N.R.A.'s other pet project, a campaign for congressional hearings on the alleged abuses by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms during the Waco raid, also garnered little sympathy. Fifty-two percent of gun owners felt the invasion of the Branch Davidian compound was justified; just 27% thought the Davidians should have been left alone.

Despite such wan support among gun owners, the N.R.A. may well get its way on both counts -- just not as soon as its leaders had hoped. While Knox predicted last week that the assault-weapons ban will be altered by Congress this year, the greater likelihood is that both chambers, mindful of public skittishness following the Oklahoma City blast, will postpone any vote until next year. That delay, however, may work to the N.R.A.'s advantage by giving the group more time to muster votes.

As for an investigation of alleged ATF abuses, two House subcommittees have agreed to hold a joint hearing by early summer. A G.O.P. House staff member says the decision was motivated by an outpouring of letters from citizens angered by the events in Waco. New York Democrat Charles Schumer, who has unsuccessfully tried instead to steer the House Judiciary Committee toward hearings on citizens' militias, counters, "If there were no N.R.A., there'd be no [Waco] hearings." Meanwhile, in the Senate, the Judiciary Committee has put off a Waco hearing, but the N.R.A. has allies championing its cause. "I think it's important to hold hearings," says Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat. "Let people say what they think. It's cathartic. Someone might learn something."

As the N.R.A. moves farther from the center, its political gravity only becomes stronger. At a time when the group has "lost some element of respectability in polite company," as analyst Mann puts it, presidential candidate Phil Gramm was on hand at the Phoenix convention last week to deliver the keynote address. Such clout has ensured that no piece of gun-control legislation will be passed by the current Congress. Then there is the eagerness of legislators like Baucus, who crossed the N.R.A. when he voted for the assault-weapons ban and now wants to make amends. Given the uncompromising brand of politics played by the N.R.A., Baucus knows he will face an upward battle in 1996 to secure a fourth term. Says author Spitzer: "The N.R.A. can make life so unpleasant that key public figures will yield to them because fighting them is more of a hassle than it's worth."

Clinton's assessment of the N.R.A.'s influence is even more dire. After the Democratic bloodbath in the '94 elections, he told the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "The N.R.A. is the reason the Republicans control the House." In that election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the N.R.A.'s political-action committee funneled nearly $1.9 million directly into campaign coffers and poured another $1.5 million of N.R.A. money into commercials, direct mailings and phone banks. The upshot: an estimated 32 incumbent House supporters of gun control lost their seats. The N.R.A.'s outlays not only represented a trebling of its political expenditures since 1990 but also showed a pronounced rightward tilt. Whereas in 1990 Democrats benefited from 39% of the N.R.A. pie, by '94 their share was down to 18%.

In its campaign work, the N.R.A. has become expert at brutal opposition tactics. Oklahoma Democrat Mike Synar was bumped from his House seat in the primary by what he calls a "stealth campaign," which did indeed mirror the stealth tactics of the religious right. The N.R.A. not only sent several operatives into the Congressman's Muskogee district to make sure opponents' campaigns were professionally run but also, Synar charges, trained and dispatched supporters to "stalk" him and interrupt his public meetings with rude questions. "Their idea was to keep the turnout low, then make sure their vote got out." In the end, he says, among the 21% voter turnout, perhaps half were N.R.A. sympathizers.

Conversely, the N.R.A.'s attempt to salvage the imperiled seat of Texas Democrat Jack Brooks, a veteran N.R.A. supporter, met with defeat-ironically, at the hands of its grass-roots membership. Brooks, as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was perceived by n.r.a. leaders as a valuable gatekeeper for key legislation. But when Brooks voted for Clinton's crime bill, which included the assault-weapons ban, local N.R.A. members demanded that the endorsement be withdrawn. The N.R.A. dispatched no less a figure than Metaksa to argue Brooks' cause. But the local citizenry refused to fall into line, instead electing N.R.A. sympathizer Steve Stockman, who supports the militia movement as well. The N.R.A. leadership now cites the Brooks-Stockman episode to counter criticisms that the N.R.A. is a top-down organization whose actions are dictated from its new $15 million headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia. "When you have 3.5 million members," contends president Washington, "you have people of every persuasion."

Still, there is a sense that the N.R.A. is being propelled rightward by a tiny alite. Critics charge that this cadre has seized power by capitalizing on the N.R.A.'s poor internal voter turnout. Though some 33% of members are eligible to vote, just 7% cast ballots. N.R.A. leaders went to great lengths last week in Phoenix to deny any serious rupture within the board. And despite speculation that hard-liners Knox and Metaksa might try to wrest control of the board from the somewhat more moderate helmsmanship of Washington and LaPierre, no putsch transpired. "The N.R.A. plays political games hard, inside and outside, but we are like a big family," says Knox. "Woe be unto you if you say something bad about our mama. We circle the wagons."

The circling was also tight among the N.R.A. members who felt enough devotion to lay down good money to attend the five-day conference in Phoenix. While many members allowed that the N.R.A. leadership's rhetoric was over the top, many also strongly perceive a government campaign to strip them of the ability to defend themselves. "That final loss of all weapons is a real fear for a lot of us," says Phillips of the Colorado N.R.A. "We've heard federal people talk about the disarming of America, and we'll take them at their word." They firmly adhere to the slippery-slope argument as well. With that disarming, they fear, all freedoms will be lost. "Guns are the clearly identifiable issue," says Bill Hiort, a lifetime member from Sycamore, Illinois. "But they're just one example of the intrusion of government into all aspects of life."

Across the U.S., far from the convention's fervor, many N.R.A. members seem to shrug off the group's excesses as tactics that are excusable given the importance of the mission. "The N.R.A., whatever its faults, is still the best thing gun owners have," says Scott Carter, a 20-year member who manages a gun shop in Warrenton, Virginia. "Their past efforts and their future efforts to keep firearms in the hands of law-abiding citizens will do more to save this country than anything else." As for those members who feel that the N.R.A. has abandoned the interests of target shooters and hunters, says Hefner Appling, a longtime N.R.A. member in Texas, "That's just what the N.R.A.'s enemies like to say."

Such talk leaves little space for people like Dave Richards, 37, of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a target shooter who joined the N.R.A. to support the rights of sportsmen. Two years ago, Richards quit after concluding that the N.R.A. had become "more about lobbying for extremes than the mainstream people who just want to go hunting." A large number of those mainstream folks are now ex-members. Currently, four of every 10 members drop out when it comes time to renew their $35 annual membership. "All the smaller voices like mine," says hunter Ray Guzman, "aren't being heard." Speaking with a louder, shriller voice clearly works within the n.r.a. The question is whether America's other citizens, including responsible gun owners, will make themselves heard as well.

--Reported by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Nina Burleigh/Washington, S.C. Gwynne/Austin, Elaine Shannon and Richard Woodbury/Phoenix and David Seideman/New York

With reporting by JEFFREY H. BIRNBAUM AND NINA BURLEIGH/ WASHINGTON, S.C. GWYNNE/AUSTIN, ELAINE SHANNON AND RICHARD WOODBURY/PHOENIX AND DAVID SEIDEMAN/NEW YORK