l measures, in spite of broad public support for them, may be most directly attributed to the existence of a strong "gun rights" lobby. The most influential component of this lobby, though not the only one, is the National Rifle Association, or NRA, which has some four million dues-paying members, and thus has about $100 million to spend each year on lobbying, advertisements, and other forms of political activity (Singh, 2003, pp. 81-82).
Formal studies of the NRA's reputed influence have produced ambiguous results, but much anecdotal evidence favors the perception that the NRA in particular (and the gun-rights lobby more broadly) exerts a strong political influence (Kenny, McBurnett, and Bordua, 2004). In politics, anecdotal evidence is often enough. If politicians believe that some organization or interest has influence, they will tend to adjust their own behavior accordingly. A perception of influence thus becomes actual influence.
A further indicator of the influence of the NRA and the gun-rights lobby as a whole is that the Democratic Party, which in recent decades had been strongly in favor of gun control, has been abandoning the issue (Montgomery, 2003, p. 1). It has been suggested that they are doing so not in any hope of winning over gun-rights activists, who tend to be strongly conservative and Republican (Singh, 2003, p. 83). Instead, it is argued, Democrats are abandoning gun control in the hope of winning greater support from working-class gun owners, a group that might otherwise be more open to supporting Democrats on the basis of economic issues (Montgomery, 2003, p. 3).
The NRA has even sought to extend its influence beyond the United States. In 1997, it sought to introduce a measure to the United Nations Economic and Social Council that would relax international standards regarding export and import of guns. It may be noted with some irony that this effort was made at a time when the NRA was using anti...