Gun owners find new outlets in the midst of a weakened NRA

After the 9/11 terror attacks, he became qualified to carry a gun in the cockpit.But Mokos has grown so disillusioned with the NRA over the years that he has joined forces with a rival organization — the gun control group founded by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.“The more gun owners I contacted, the more I found out that everybody is thinking the same thing: The NRA does not speak for us,” said Mokos, who was a founder of the Minnesota Gun Owners for Safety.As the 2020 presidential campaign draws closer, gun control groups are seizing on the turmoil engulfing the NRA — as well as recent high profile shootings in Gilroy, California; El Paso, Texas; Dayton, Ohio, and this weekend’s in Odessa and Midland, Texas — to court firearms owners in hopes of persuading them that there can be bipartisan solutions to gun violence that don’t infringe on their Second Amendment rights.Giffords’ group formed coalitions this year with gun owners in Colorado, Minnesota and Texas in outreach that managing director Robin Lloyd said was done expressly to show that not all gun owners believe in the NRA.“The fallacy that the NRA has perpetuated for so long is that you’re either for the Second Amendment or you’re for taking away people’s guns,” Lloyd told the AP.At the same time, various pro-gun organizations at the state level have been more active in staking their claim as the true defenders of the Second Amendment.