NRA mole?

Not all news stories have any foundation in reality, like that "undiscovered tribe" from a few months back. I'm dubious about this story also, purportedly from Mother Jones, in which a woman allegedly joined some gun control groups to spy on them.

I can understand this sort of thing:

She infiltrated an animal-rights group in the late 1980s at the request of U.S. Surgical, and befriended an activist who was later convicted in a pipe bomb attack against the medical-supply business, U.S. Surgical acknowledged in news reports at the time. U.S. Surgical had come under fire for using dogs for research and training.

That's obvious and urgent self-defense.

But I'm not sure exactly what use a spy would be to the NRA.

But as for any secrets she might have been privy to, the gun-control groups said they have little to hide, since they put their message and information about their budgets on the Web.

Strategy sessions? (What exactly was going to be new--it's all same old same old.) Budgeting (Online, they say). Influenced congress-critters? (Everybody knows who's who). Given the popular trends towards things like open carry laws it doesn't seem as though the NRA would be desperately worried.

"Sweeping their offices for bugs" seems overkill--and since it contradicts their claim that everything important is already publicly available I suspect somebody is grandstanding. Bryan Miller provides a little humor, though: "In the battle of ideas with the gun lobby, we're at a constant disadvantage because we're honest." (Michael Bellesiles, etc) I'm not saying that the whole lot are dishonest, just that the claim to be more honest is amusing

If this turns out to be true, I'd guess it means the NRA has a little more money than it knows what to do with. Or somebody has Nixonian levels of worry. Watergate was such a weird joke: with McGovern the nominee he didn't need to worry about Democratic party strategy, so why did his team bother?