We can all learn something from the tactical, organizational, and lobbying might of the National Rifle Association.

Full disclosure. I am a lifetime member of the NRA. I target shoot, hunt, have a concealed carry permit, and carry when I feel it necessary (which isn’t all that often, truth be told). I have lots of guns. Dozens. Rifles, shotguns, pistols, revolvers.

I am, in the parlance of our times, a gun nut.

But I have a hard time with a lot of the NRA’s message.

They can be shrill. Wayne LaPierre often comes across as a complete raving lunatic. Part of his appeal to some, I suspect.

They are hopelessly, head over heals in love with the military-industrial complex and cheerlead the Government’s warmongering.

They equate patriotism with support for military intervention, which I despise.

They act like a marketing agency for the gun manufacturers. They aren’t on the gun owners side, as much as, say the Second Amendment Foundation or Gun Owners of America.

However. The NRA is an AMAZING lobbying organization. The best.

But that every Amendment in the Bill of Rights had this kind of firepower behind it!

The First Amendment does pretty well. You gots your ACLU, your ADF, talk radio, the press, the Church, and so forth.

4-5-6? Not so much. Not terrible, but could do a lot better.

8th? Forget it. If we had a group like the NRA for the eighth capital punishment would be (rightly) outlawed across the land.

What’s the secret of their success?

The gun, culturally, is deeply woven into the fabric of the American narrative. Like the car, it symbolizes freedom, power, and individuality. So they’ve got the cultural motif thing going for them. Big head start.

Gun owners strongly self-identify as such. It’s a major pivot for gun owners politically. Lots of gun owners are single issue voters. I won’t vote for a gun grabber, no way, no how.

Third, there’s a kernel of truth to the NRA’s scaremongering. Governments don’t like armed citizens. This is an objective statement. Anywhere, anyhow, governments seem hellbent on disarming their citizens. Won’t get into the whys. We’ll leave that for another diary.

So you’ve got a powerful American symbol, the believers of which are politically conscious and jealous of their rights, and a long train of evidence that governments don’t like the symbol, or your embrace of it.

So right there, the NRA are primed and ready to rock. Cocked and locked, you might say.

Let’s look at the mechanics of their lobbying.

The principal arm of the NRA from a lobbying perspective is the NRA-ILA. These guys, well, they have their pulse on every piece of city, county, state, federal, and international (places like Canada, UK, and Oz) gun legisation or court case. They communicate with Members very effectively (such as the "grassroots alert" newsletter), and wield their membership as a blunt instrument to obtain support from politicians.

They have a lot of money. They aren’t a 501(c) so they don’t have to play by the usual non-profit rules. They are a lobbying organization.

Is this is a good thing? Well, yes. Gun nuts would be loathe to admit this (or wouldn’t even realize it), but of all the Amendments, the Second (or RKBA as we refer to it), is not only the most politically sacred, it’s the one amendment that has actually been strengthen over the past 2 decades.

Gun rights have strengthened at the state level too. In fact, casual acquaintances to gun rights politics incorrectly assume the action is in D.C. It’s not. It’s at the state level. It’s here the NRA has been most effective.

And not just in the legislative arena. They are remarkably successful in court, both federally and in the states. They get bans overturned. The use the courts to obtain gun manufacturer immunity from civil and criminal liability. They seek and obtain injunctions on gun laws.

They also have in their arsenal Alan Gura, the 39 year old, Israeli-born libertarian lawyer, one of the best constitutional litigators around. He argued Heller for the plaintiff, and he’s arguing McDonald v. Chicago, which should incorporate the Second Amendment in the Fourteenth (again, wouldn’t it be nice if we could get the Eighth incorporated?) There’s a reasonable chance this case could overturn the Slaughterhouse precedent, the worst reading of the Fourteenth Amendment ever. This is big time, folks.

So how do you measure success for the NRA? Take a look at the spread of concealed carry over the past several decades.

In 1987 there were about 8 "shall issue" states. Shall issue means absent a compelling reason (felony, domestic battery, etc.) the state "shall issue" a concealed carry permit to a legal resident of that state. 40 states were either "may" issue or "no" issue.

By 2009, 48 states allowed some form of concealed carry, with 39 states being shall issue. Only two states (WI and IL) currently are no issue.

This is an astounding political and legal achievement, by any measure.

Again, would that we could do this with the rest of the Bill of Rights!

Progressive libertarians need to look past the occasionally off-putting tone and message of the NRA and learn from their organizational and tactical prowess. As Americans, we’d all benefit.