“The NRA is not doing anything around the country anywhere; all their staff lawyered up and are fighting amongst each other,” said Dudley Brown, a gun rights lobbyist who has long criticized the NRA for being too open to compromise. Brown’s rival group, the National Association for Gun Rights, has grown to 75 staff members and a $15 million budget, he said, up from about $6 million in 2019…

“The movement itself is remarkably resilient, and it’s not a pyramid as much as the NRA would love it to be,” Brown said. “It used to be, but it’s not anymore.”

Brown’s group is not the only competitor to pick up money and members from the NRA’s wake. Gun Owners of America grew from less than a dozen staff members in Springfield, Va., in 2018 to now having field directors in 25 states. The organization’s income surged to about $5.9 million in 2019, more than double what it raised two years earlier, according to tax filings.

“I’ve been told we could stop fundraising for five to 10 years and keep operating on the money we have,” said the group’s general counsel, Mike Hammond. As an illustration of the group’s growing influence, Hammond said every Republican congressional candidate in New Hampshire came to visit his country store in Dunbarton, N.H., seeking the group’s endorsement. “The NRA is a convenient foil for the left, but the NRA is not the be-all, end-all.”