We've all seen the signs and bumper stickers - "I'm the NRA and I Vote."

But with the Republican Party in chaos, time the question must be asked: for whom??

Grandpa Fred is putting his last eggs in the basket of South Carolina gun owners, but gun owners aren't fools and they have no interest in backing a sure primary loser.

Their dilemma is expressed by F. Hewitt Grant, the grandfatherly president of Ellett Brothers gun manufacturing:

Grant has been wooed by three candidates: Thompson, Huckabee and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

He’s leaning toward Thompson, hasn’t completely ruled out Huckabee, and “laughed at” the overture from Giuliani, who as mayor backed a lawsuit against New York gun manufacturers that is still in litigation and remains an unforgivable sin among gun advocates.

“We’re in a world of hurt,” Grant says when he sizes up the Republican front-runner field.

McCain, who wandered off the pro-gun reservation in the late 1990s by supporting gun control but has now come back to the fold, “wavers” too much, says Grant.

As for Romney, who signed gun control legislation while governor, Grant playfully loads on the Southern drawl and simply says: “He’s from Massachusetts.”

But for gun owners looking past the primaries to the general election, Romney has appeal - if you can stop laughing at his hunting "prowess".

Devin Sweeney, a gun buyer from Inman, S.C., who attended the Ellett Brothers gun show, said he’s leaning toward Romney because he thinks he has the best shot of winning the White House in November.

He concedes that Romney’s record isn’t perfect, but notes the former governor did join the National Rifle Association and claims to be a hunter, albeit of mostly “small varmints.”

So how is the NRA telling its members to vote?

The rank and file has been left largely on their own because the NRA, itself, is struggling with how to manage a field filled with front-runners with tainted records.

The NRA weeks ago released a Democratic voter guide that made clear that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson had the best record on gun issues.

But they have yet to offer a similar guide for the Republican field, even though all of the first primary states are home to significant numbers of Second Amendment activists.

“We are inching towards making some kind of determination,” said spokesman Andrew Arulanandam.

Translation: we're not betting our credibility on any of these losers!

I can't imagine gun owners will vote for Grandpa Fred, so they really have no choice except Huck, who leads in SC (caveat: Rasmussen shows a post-NH bounce for McCain) and who just passed Rudy as the national GOP frontrunner.