Its actually about fund raising, they are building their list of people who support the big tent general idea's of gun control so they can hit them up for donations, then hit them up to vote for the candidates they support. You get a couple million people to sign up for you emails, 20% receive and read them, 20% make a donation averaging $20 you just raised 1.6 million dollars this year. That means you can afford the high dollar management and fundraisers that can go out and hit up the big money donors so you can spend money on political campaigns and pushing legislation (the attorneys/lobbyists and travel are not cheap).