If you don't think the NRA makes their own political weather, you seem to be holding a hopelessly naive opinion on the matter. The facts are well-reported. Politicians fear defying the NRA, even for the protection of public health and safety, lest they find themselves in the projected crosshairs of a SuperPAC or at risk of becoming Swift-boated.

Addressing someone else's comment: I do support fully our US Constitution's Second Amendment protection of well-organized state militias to better enable the public defense from external aggressors, nothing more and certainly not the NRA's revisionist thinking and sociopathic libertarian-eque for-profit theories.