Babu Omowale says he needs the National Rifle Association – but only until he doesn’t. As the national firearms organization finds itself under existential threat, Mr. Omowale, the co-founder of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club in Dallas, is emblematic of a shifting gun-owning population in the U.S., some of whom say they do not identify with the NRA’s message. On the one hand, the NRA certifies gun owners in many states. But that narrow utility makes it expendable, especially for Black gun owners, whom the NRA has historically struggled to engage as members. “The NRA is just a political tool for us to be able to arm ourselves, but we don’t buy into the politics of any of it since it’s the right of every American to take advantage of [the Second Amendment],” says Mr. Omowale, who has joined armed rallies recently on behalf of Black rights. “I believe it’s time for [Black people] to start our own NRA.” As New York prosecutors aim to dissolve the NRA in a lawsuit alleging self-dealing and mismanagement, one thing is becoming clear to Mr. Omowale: Even as more Americans are exercising their Second Amendment rights, the NRA’s framing of that right as a conservative political ideal is losing potency. At a time when guns have marched to front and center of political debate, the NRA’s use of the Second Amendment as a political cudgel has run headlong against the growing diversity of the gun-owning public, many of whom tell pollsters they support some forms of gun control, including background checks for private sales – a longtime sticking point for the NRA. In that way, the NRA’s troubles are occurring at a time of shifting attitudes about the role of the Second Amendment in American life. The NRA’s “insularity is intimately connected with the ideological alignment … with politically conservative culture warriors,” says Wake Forest University sociologist David Yamane, founder of the Gun Culture 2.0 blog, in an email. Now, “the proliferation of gun clubs, groups and organizations representing diverse gun owners – [National African American Gun Association], A Girl and a Gun, Liberal Gun Owners, to name a few – fills the vacuum left by the NRA.”  [full article]