HOUSTON -- The National Rifle Association is calling its members to arms for what they say is the next battle in a prolonged war to protect gun rights: the 2014 congressional elections.

"We are in the midst of a once-in-a-generation fight for everything we care about," NRA chief executive and vice president Wayne LaPierre told the gun lobby's membership on the second day of its annual convention. The motto this year is "Stand and Fight."

Gun owners'  freedom, LaPierre said, "is on the line and never more on the line than right now and through the 2014 congressional elections."

LaPierre, a legendary figure in the gun-control wars, has been leading the charge against the first sustained push for new gun laws in nearly two decades -- sparked by the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 20 children and 6 educators were killed.

Last month, a bill that would have expanded background checks to gun show and Internet sales failed in the Senate. Democrats couldn't get 60 votes for the compromise proposal, with an overwhelming number of Republicans voting "no." 

There were Democrats who opposed it, too: Sens. Mark Begich of Alaska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, both up for reelection in 2014, as well as freshman Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. Sen. Max Baucus voted against it, and announced his retirement just days later.

It was a lobbying victory that even the organization's president acknowledged seemed far-fetched in the emotionally charged post-Newtown era, when gun-control advocates were angling for much stiffer laws, such as bans on so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Those measures went down too -- and in much more overwhelming fashion than the hard-fought background checks.

At the convention, outgoing NRA leader David Keene called the defeat of background checks "quite an accomplishment -- an accomplishment that few of us would have predicted back in January."

'Wall of Guns' raffle
Two floors below the speakers' hall, stalls showcasing guns, ammunition and firearms accessories from more than 500 retailers were spread out across nearly nine acres of space. One retailer hawked antique guns from the Civil War era -- a Colt revolver was on sale for nearly $5,000. Another company had a simulated shooting range. And Cabela's, the sporting goods store, sponsored a "Wall of Guns" raffle. 

Wandering through the exhibits were, the NRA claims, more than 70,000 attendees from across the country. The group said it expected record attendance and boasted that it now had more than 5 million members overall.

While polls show overwhelming numbers of Americans support broader background checks, the NRA members at the Houston convention largely didn't share that view.

"Why should we pay through extra legislation, through extra hassle to be a law-abiding citizen?" said Martin Baker, a first-time convention attendee from Winfield, Kan.

"You're not going to ever stop [gun violence] with a band-aid," said Larry Alders, 64, who has been an NRA member since he was 16.

In his speech, LaPierre linked the gun-control debate to the aftermath of the Boston bombings, arguing that as police searched for an armed suspect in a place where guns are heavily regulated, residents were sheltered in place with no means to defend themselves.

“How many Bostonians wished they had a gun two weeks ago?" LaPierre asked the crowd. It was the first time the NRA connected the Boston bombing with the gun control debate.

A day earlier, a parade of conservative politicians -- including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former presidential candidate Rick Santorum and Texas Gov. Rick Perry -- assailed Obama and cast the fight over gun control as part of a broader culture war.

"This is about what kind of people we are and what kind of country we want to be," said Palin, who stood at the podium in a black-and-pink t-shirt featuring moose antlers and the slogan "women hunt." Cruz bragged about his filibuster of gun legislation and received a standing ovation. Back in the Senate, even his GOP colleagues had urged him and others who joined him not to be too public in their protests.

Fight isn't over
Across the street from the convention hall, a handful of protestors stood in a nearby park and read the names of 4,000 victims of gun violence. Mayor Michael Bloomberg's group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, helped organize gun control supporters to attend the convention -- including two relatives Newtown victims. 

"My kids safety trumps your gun rights," read one sign.

Bloomberg, who's spending millions on ads promoting gun control, was himself a frequent target at the convention. LaPierre labeled him a "national nanny." 

There was only one thing the two sides could agree on: the fight over guns isn't over.

"I am in this for the long haul," said Neil Heslin, whose 6-year-old son Jesse was killed in Newtown. On Friday, he said, he had a long phone conversation with Pryor, the Arkansas senator, urging him to change his "no" vote if a background check bill comes up again.

The NRA, meanwhile, showcased the next generation. "Our future depends on young NRA members,” said Chris Cox, the NRA’s chief lobbyist.

The youngest lifetime NRA member in attendance? Three-year-old Elaia Wagen, whose adoptive parents said her grandfather paid the $1,000 that it takes to buy the membership.

"Being a member of the NRA,” her mother, Brook Wagen, said, “for me and my daughter -- and for my sons -- is teaching them they have to protect their freedoms." 

Related: 

• NRA annual meeting convenes as gun-control debate rages
• LaPierre: 'We will never surrender our guns'
• Rick Perry's target practice video is the talk of NRA meeting

Capitol Hill will play host to a springtime clash over gun rights, as lawmakers prepare to take up significant gun control legislation for the first time in years. 

The Senate will take up a new bill next month intended to require background checks for every firearm purchase in the country — and proponents of the legislation are girding for a major political showdown against supporters of gun rights and its principal advocacy group, the National Rifle Association. 

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has emerged as one of the most forceful national backers of stricter gun laws, and this weekend launched a $12 million television ad campaign meant to pressure wavering senators to support the new legislation when they return from their holiday break.

"We're trying to do everything we can to impress upon the Senators that this is what the survivors want, this is what the public wants," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. He added later: "If 90 percent of the public want something, and their representatives vote against that, common sense says, they are going to have a price to pay for that."

But his push has been met with strict resistance by the NRA, which has dug in against stricter controls on guns since last December's massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., the catalyzing event for President Barack Obama's renewed push for new gun laws. 

"He can't spend enough of of his $27 billion to impose his will on the American people," said Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's CEO and executive vice president, of Bloomberg's new advertising effort. "He can't buy America."

Already, advocates of stricter gun laws have suffered setbacks due to the NRA's resistance. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said this week that he would move forward with legislation following the holiday recess, but said it would exclude a reinstatement of the ban on assault weapons, which appears to lack sufficient support to move forward in the Senate. But Democrats will seek a vote on the ban in the form of an amendment, laying down a political marker — which Bloomberg said he would be watching closely.

"I don't think we should give up on the assault weapons ban," he said. "But clearly, it is a more difficult issue for a lot of people … It may be just that people have different views about assault weapons than they do about background checks."

But even the proposed expansion of background checks is far from assured passage in Congress. Failing to advance this more modest gun control would be a blow to efforts to advance gun controls, even with a high-profile event like the Newtown massacre providing an impetus for action.

LaPierre derided the proposal on background checks as little more than "a speed bump for the law-abiding." Though the NRA had supported the background check system in the past, LaPierre said it was "not fair," "not accurate" and "not instant" in practice.

Days after lawmakers sidelined a proposed assault weapons ban, Vice President Joe Biden and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday offered a stern warning to Congress: there are still political consequences for opposing the measure.

"Even though restrictions on military-style weapons will not be part of the bill that goes to the floor of the U.S. Senate, it will get a vote by the full Senate as an amendment to the bill. And everyone’s going to have to stand up and say yea or nay, and then the rest of us have to decide just how we feel about people and their stands," Bloomberg said at a New York press conference with Biden and several family members of children killed in last year’s Sandy Hook Elementary shooting.

Bloomberg urged members of the public to tell congressional opponents of the gun control measure that they will “support whoever runs against you, no matter who they are.”

"Congress just has to get some courage and it's up to us as Americans and as fellow human beings to give them that courage," he said.

For the billionaire mayor, that “courage” also means “cash.”  

Bloomberg has already put millions behind his efforts to elect lawmakers who support gun control -- and his aides say he plans to use millions more on ads to sway those who might vote against it.

Biden, in New York to meet with Bloomberg just days after the Senate dropped the assault weapons ban from its gun bill, insisted that public opinion has shifted on gun restrictions -- and that the political pressure from the gun lobby has been overstated.

"It must be awful, being in public office and concluding that even though you might believe you should take action that you can't take action because of the political consequence you face. What a heck of a way to make a living. What a heck of a way to have to, have to act," Biden said. "The message I want to get across, Mr. Mayor, is the risk does not exist as is exaggerated today."

A suite of new gun control restrictions is winding through Congress, with Senate Democrats set to outline a package that could include new school safety measures, universal background checks for gun buyers and tougher penalties for straw purchasing and gun trafficking. 

But it's already clear that the politics of gun control are still difficult -- and as the Newtown massacre fades into the national memory, it's only going to get harder. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this week informed California Sen. Dianne Feinstein that the assault weapons ban she's championed for decades won't be included in the bill, all but dooming its chances.

Senators will still vote on the ban as an amendment to the bill, allowing advocates the chance to see who voted against it and giving red state Democrats the chance to show they're opposing Obama's gun restrictions. There will be a second, separate vote on an amendment to ban high-capacity magazines.

This story was originally published on Thu Mar 21, 2013 1:44 PM EDT

Vice President Joe Biden argued Wednesday that Democratic voters in yesterday’s special Democratic congressional primary in Illinois illustrated that there is a larger national mandate for tighter gun restrictions.

“The voters sent a message last night, not just to the NRA but to the politicians all around the country by electing Robin Kelly, who stood up and stood strong for gun safety totally consistent with our Second Amendment rights,” Biden told a gathering of state attorneys general in Washington D.C.

Kelly, a former state representative, won decisively over U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson, a Democrat who at one time had been favored to win the Chicago-area seat. But Halvorson faced over two million dollars’ worth of negative advertising funded by pro-gun control billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who attacked her for an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association.

The congressional district, which is heavily Democratic, includes some of Chicago's South Side neighborhoods as well as suburban areas south of the city.

Biden said Kelly’s decisive victory sent an “unequivocal signal” in the first major electoral contest since the shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

“The message is there will be a moral price as well as a political price to be paid for inaction,” he said.

After meeting with Biden today, Bloomberg said he believed the race showed that support for stricter gun laws won't hurt candidates.

Bloomberg said the White House should reach out to members of Congress to explain "why their vote could make a difference and why all the polls show that they will not be disadvantaged the next time they run."

"Quite the contrary," he added. "They will have this as a feather in their cap and be able to say next time they run ‘when the going was tough, I stood up for you.’”

NBC's Kasie Hunt contributed to this report. 

Friday's school shooting in Connecticut prompted a renewed effort by lawmakers to re-evaluate gun rights, as a top Democrat vowed Sunday to introduce new legislation on the first day of the new Congress next year.

The massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. left 28 dead, including 20 students, seven adults and the suspected shooter, leading proponents of gun control to redouble their efforts to seek new regulations. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an outspoken advocate of gun control, said the issue should now be atop President Barack Obama's second term agenda.

To that end, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D, said she intended to introduce a gun control bill on the first day of the next Congress. Paired with a twin version in the House, Feinstein's law would take aim at limiting the sale, transfer and possession of assault weapons, along with the capacity of high-capacity magazines. 

"It can be done," she said on NBC's "Meet the Press." The senator, a proponent of gun control, said she expected Obama to offer his public support for the law. 

A federal ban on assault weapons, first passed in 1994 and signed by President Bill Clinton, expired in 2004. And while Obama has said he favors its reinstatement, the administration has hardly thrown its weight behind such a proposal during his first term. 

The especially grisly shooting in Connecticut — which follows several other high-profile shootings at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and outside a Sikh temple in Wisconsin — might now serve as a catalyzing moment in that dormant gun debate. 

"We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics," Obama himself said on Friday in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting. 

Outspoken proponents of gun control, like Bloomberg, have now begun to pressure the president to speak out more forcefully on the issue. 

"It's time for the president to stand up and lead and tell this country what we should do," said the New York City mayor. "This should be his No. 1 agenda."

There are indications that some of the most commonly discussed measures to rein in weapons enjoy some degree of public support. An early August CNN/ORC poll, conducted in the aftermath of the Colorado and Wisconsin shootings, found varying levels of public support for different gun control proposals. Fifty-seven percent of adults, for instance, said they favored a ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of assault weapons, and 60 percent said they supported a ban on the possession of high-capacity ammunition clips. 

But gun owners' groups, like the National Rifle Association, could prove a significant political obstacle to moving any such proposals through Congress. The NRA — which endorsed Obama's Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, during the presidential campaign — remains a formidable political force. The group could target, for instance, Democrats from rural or centrist districts and states for defeat if they were to vote for such a law. 

Bloomberg argued otherwise. "There is this myth that the NRA is so powerful," he said. "Today the NRA's power is so vastly overrated."

In the meantime, the mayor said, Obama could take action through executive orders to strengthen and update the background check system and more aggressively enforce existing laws. 

On Sunday, the president will travel to Newtown to comfort victims' families and thank first responders for their efforts. Obama will also speak at a vigil this evening.