Gun Own­ers of Amer­i­ca steps into the spot­light as NRA’s pow­er fades

A Vir­ginia-based gun rights group that had oper­at­ed in the shad­ow of the Nation­al Rifle Asso­ci­a­tion is quick­ly ris­ing in rank, grow­ing to more than 2 mil­lion mem­bers and com­mit­ted to tak­ing down law­mak­ers who show any sign of com­pro­mise on gun con­trol. 
The Gun Own­ers of Amer­i­ca, which has been around since 1976, has seen a spike in mem­ber­ship fol­low­ing the NRA’s recent fall from grace. 
The NRA was the most pow­er­ful gun rights group in the nation for decades but lost hun­dreds of thou­sands of mem­bers fol­low­ing alle­ga­tions of fraud and abuse. To deal with the mass exo­dus, the orga­ni­za­tion also cut pro­grams that were pop­u­lar with its mem­bers, such as gun train­ing, which led to more peo­ple leav­ing.
On top of that, the orga­ni­za­tion and its long­time head, Wayne LaPierre, were found liable by a Man­hat­tan jury in a civ­il case ear­li­er this year. Jurors agreed LaPierre had “vio­lat­ed his statu­to­ry obli …