Paul has an A-rating from the NRA, but the objective grading of his gun-rights credentials has little to do with the politics of the pro-gun lobby, wherein his involvement with extremist groups tied to his father, former congressman and libertarian-icon Ron Paul, has not won him many friends.

“Sometimes the NRA doesn’t like it when people are bigger defenders of the issue than they are,” the source suggested. “They also don’t like it that he helps other, stronger groups like the Gun Owners of America and the National Association for Gun Rights.”

The Gun Owners of America was founded in 1975 by a former member of the NRA board of directors, H.L. Richardson, and makes a sport out of publicly criticizing the NRA.

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass-murder in 2012, the GOA said its rival was hiding from the media: “Whenever there’s a tragedy, they go into possum mode,” chief counsel Mike Hammond told The Huffington Post. “They think that if they don’t say anything that it will go away.”