The NRA is currently an advocate of the "individual's right to bear arms." But they also, by their advocacy, want to take away everyone else's right to be safe in their communities.
The problem is that this so-called "right" is in conflict with a person's right to be safe in person and property.
The right to carry a gun also confers on that carrier the "right" to threaten someone with death, and the right to shoot someone to death -- the latter being enshrined the many "stand your ground" (or shoot to kill) laws.
The two foundational documents of the United States of America propose somewhat contradictory theories of society: In the Declaration of Independence, a society of atomistic individuals -- "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights" -- and the Constitution of the United States of America, a society of collective goals -- "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity...."
Apparently Thomas Jefferson thought that the Constitution was too collective and so proposed the first ten amendments, the "Bill of Rights" to specifically protect (or enclose) the rights of the individual. Nevertheless, the Bill of Rights is not a separate document from the Constitution, but a part of it, and so should be understood and interpreted within the context set forth by the Preamble. In other words, the right of an individual should not be elevated to the point where that individual, asserting their individual right, endangers the rights of the community.
The NRA is seeking to extend the individual's "right to bear arms" universally, to all levels of society. Currently, there is no universal gun law. There is Federal law banning machine guns, but that leaves a lot of fire power available for use, and cases in the Supreme Court have sought to diminish the ability of society to regulate the possession or use of firearms. Thus, a state's right to regulate firearms is constrained by Federal law and policy. But beyond Federal constraints, states may allow the possession and use of firearms within their borders under almost all circumstances. Those constraints seem to reside and are protected by the rights of private property. Thus, individuals can forbid firearms in their homes, and businesses and other institutions can forbid firearms on their property.
The logic embodied in the NRA's behavior says that all constraints on the use and possession of firearms should be removed as they are infringements on and individual's right to "keep and bear arms". Thus, entering a jewelry or any store while carrying a loaded M-16 cannot be prohibited. Neither should an individual carrying a Glock 19 be prohibited from entering a church or synagogue or mosque or the YMCA or a concert. After all, there is no crime until an individual decides to use a weapon in those environments.
As the covid-19 pandemic has shown, the United States is terrible at prevention and collective action. The United States was rated the best in the world in terms of pandemic preparedness, yet the US has been the worst in the world in protecting its citizens from death by the pandemic given its wealth and state of preparedness. This is because the US is bad at prevention, which requires deferred gratification and collective action, two values that are anathema to the current economic system.
A world comprised solely of individual rights is the world described by Thomas Hobbes as a world waging a "war of all against all", where life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." This is the NRA's paradise.
