It supports waiting periods, bans on snub-nosed handguns and assault weapons, licensing of handgun carriers and, in a rare measure on which pro- and anti-gun forces agree, mandatory jail sentences for gun-toting criminals.

As a liberal and a gun owner, I find it disturbing that you object to free speech for the N.R.A. but do not condemn anti-gun forces for advocating the elimination of the Second Amendment.

But it has utterly transformed the dynamics of the debate, by giving the anti-gun forces something the rifle association has taken for granted: enormous political clout.

Today, while he went further than ever before in criticizing paramilitary groups, which often label themselves "militias," he pulled up short of the blanket condemnation of them that anti-gun forces have made in demanding Congressional hearings.

The anti-gun forces say the N.R.A. has lost members, some 200,000 to 300,000 over the past year, because it is too militant.

"In their dreams," she said, when asked if, because she is a woman, a grandmother and a former cheerleader sponsor, anti-gun forces can expect any letup while she is president of the N.R.A.

In Maryland, voters are to decide in November whether to retain a recently passed law designed to stop the sale of cheaply made handguns that the anti-gun forces call "Saturday Night Specials."

This came two years after the NRA-backed Republican incumbent in Michigan, U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham, was defeated by anti-gun forces.

There, pro-gun forces are citing the Rowan incident as they try to overturn a recently passed law meant to stop the sale of cheaply made handguns that anti-gun forces refer to as "Saturday Night Specials."

Firearms makers, however, call the suit a defamatory attack by radical anti-gun forces.