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The NRA headquarters in Fairfax, Va., does not publish a typical profile of its 4 million members, but Jeffery would come reasonably close. He has been a sport shooter for 20 years. He worked to persuade the Missouri Legislature in 2004 to allow concealed weapons, an idea that Missouri voters narrowly rejected in 1999.

The 136-year-old NRA is one of the nation's most high-profile organizations, billing itself as a dogged defender of an individual's right to own firearms. It has the devotion of its members, and the derision of its opponents.

Despite the 2006 election victory of the Democratic Party, the NRA still has plenty of political punch. And its leaders remains upbeat about the Second Amendment, which dictates the right "to keep and bear arms."

"The Second Amendment is in the best shape it's been in decades, and that's good for America and the NRA," Wayne LaPierre, its chief executive since 1991, said Wednesday. "We see this convention as a celebration of American freedom."

If the predicted 60,000 members actually sign up at the registration desk, the NRA will provide St. Louis with its largest convention ever, not counting Pope John Paul II's visit in 1999. The record to beat is the attendance of 52,700 at the conference of Seventh-Day Adventists in 2005.

The NRA will fill the halls for three days with more than 400 exhibits from gun manufacturers, shooting clubs and others. Workshops will cover firearms laws, self-defense and "methods of concealed-carry."

Panelists for the "NRA and the Media" discussion Sunday include Oliver North, an NRA board member. The headline speaker Saturday is John Bolton, former ambassador to the United Nations.

If things are going well in America for the NRA, LaPierre said, the perils are in Bolton's former haunts at the U.N. and overseas.

"There is a transnational anti-gun movement that has set up shop at the U.N., some of it morphed from the old nuclear-freeze movement," he said. "The U.S. stands alone where free people can own firearms. The threat is real."

St. Louis is a stand-in pick of the NRA, which had planned to meet in Columbus, Ohio. It canceled that location in 2005, after the Columbus City Council adopted a ban on assault-type weapons. The NRA says moving here puts it within a 300-mile radius of 500,000 members.

It also puts it near the Mississippi River, dividing line for two states in which the NRA's fortunes have been markedly different.

In Missouri

Considered nearly bulletproof politically in Missouri, the NRA has to fight to hold ground in Illinois, where the Legislature is considering an assault-weapons ban.

In contrast, the Missouri Legislature is considering two high-priority NRA bills. One would expand a person's justifications for using deadly force in self-defense, and another would prohibit local governments from confiscating firearms during emergencies.

"In Jeff City, we're like salmon swimming upstream," said Jeanne Kirkton a Webster Groves city councilwoman and former leader of the local Million Mom March, a gun-control group. "Our Legislature is pretty much pro-gun. The NRA has tons of money. And it's effective."

Her dormant organization was named after a demonstration held in Washington in 2000 to lobby for stricter gun laws. That was one year after the high-water mark for gun control in Missouri, the referendum on April 6, 1999, known as Proposition B.

Prop B, backed by almost $4 million in NRA money, would have allowed Missourians to apply for permits to carry concealed weapons. The 44,000-vote margin of defeat — among 1.3 million cast — exposed a wide urban-rural gap. Prop B won majorities in 104 of 114 counties, but St. Louis County rejected it more than 2-to-1. The city of St. Louis trounced it more than 3-to-1.

"In the country, hunting is a powerful subculture, a male-bonding thing," said Ken Warren, a political science professor at St. Louis University. "In the suburbs, they don't want their kids playing with guns."

Four years later, the Legislature overrode then-Gov. Bob Holden's veto of a concealed-carry law.

"We have a strong grass-roots network and we work very hard," said Kevin Jamison, a lawyer in the Kansas City suburb of Gladstone and the NRA's point man in Missouri. "I think our opponents have a naive belief that if they outlaw or tightly restrict guns, that criminals won't commit crimes."

LaPierre said the NRA is pushing the prohibition against emergency confiscations because New Orleans police, under orders from City Hall, did just that after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. A spokesman said the NRA was "12 for 12" last year in getting states to adopt that law, with Missouri among seven considering it this year.

The other bill, known as the "Castle Doctrine," would expand the reasonable use of deadly force in self-defense beyond the traditional defense of one's home. Sixteen states have adopted similar laws at the NRA's urging. Missouri is one of eight considering it now.

In Illinois

Illinois and Wisconsin are the only states with no version of a concealed-carry law. Thom Mannard, of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, said the political power in the state is in the vast suburbs of Chicago.

"Suburban people, especially women, feel safe in their homes without a handgun," said Mannard. "For them, what a handgun adds is the potential for some type of tragedy in their homes."

He said Illinois backers of concealed-carry "don't bring it up on the floor because they know they don't have the votes." And he expressed optimism that legislators in Springfield will pass a state law banning certain types of "assault-style" weapons.

Mannard freely called his group's success a rarity for America.

"I'll give (NRA backers) this: They are very good at weighing in with legislatures," he said. "Its members are convinced that any step (for gun control) is a step towards guns being taken away. And they're not going to let that happen."

That's at least one point where he agrees with Jeffery, the North County shooting instructor.

"The NRA gives gun owners a voice to defend their rights," he said. "It is a strong bulwark against encroachment."