Updated on April 5 at 1:42 p.m. ET (see below)
While attention is focused on the U.S. Senate, which could begin voting as early as next month on gun control legislation, some state lawmakers are trying to move in the opposite direction.
Bills to nullify any gun control measures that Congress enacts have been introduced in at least 37 states since the beginning of the year, according to an analysis using Scout, Sunlight's legislative alert system. To browse the list and click through to the text of the bills, click here.
Continue readingGun ads in Illinois primary a harbinger of things to come?
The gun debate is already emerging as an issue for the 2014 election cycle. In the weeks since the State of the Union address, which President Barack Obama used to make an emotional appeal for gun control, at least seven groups have either purchased airtime in major markets around the country or posted TV-ready ads to their Youtube accounts.
Continue readingGun debate boomerang: Focus on video games targets Democratic givers
News that the alleged perpetrator of December's schoolhouse massacre in Connecticut may have been recreating a horrific virtual fantasy could put Democratic politicians in an awkward position with some of their political allies — the video game lobby.
Continue readingGun groups extend influence battle to state houses
DENVER -- A group of Democratic state legislators here had barely concluded their press conference unveiling a broad package of gun control bills when an outspoken opponent threatened to make them pay in the next election.
"I think the question for the Democrat caucus is, are you really ready to stake the 2014 elections on the gun issue?" Dudley Brown, executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, said to Colorado Public Radio last week. Brown and the group, whose motto is "don't give an inch," have been the source of $23,800 to Colorado politicians since 1996, according to a ...
Continue readingNRA PAC did not raise much post Sandy Hook
While the National Rifle Association (NRA) has claimed that membership surged in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre in December, there did not appear to be any corresponding flood in contributions to the organization's political action committtee.
During the last weeks of December following the shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead, the NRA Political Victory Fund reported collecting just over $4,000 in itemized donations from individuals, mostly in low amounts from people who had already contributed to the group's warchest during the course of the year. Another $9,600 came in ...
Continue readingGun lobby has some chits to collect on Judiciary Committee
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When National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre faces the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning in the first congressional hearing about gun control since the last month's massacre at a Connecticut elementary school, he'll be facing lawmakers who have strong feelings about his organization. Some of them have reason to feel grateful for the NRA's financial support; others have reason to resent its opposition.
Other witnesses scheduled to testify include Mark ...
Continue readingNRA gives more than $2 million to support politicians in Texas, New Mexico
During the past two decades, the National Rifle Association has contributed more than $2 million to support politicians in New Mexico and Texas, where the nation's latest outbreaks of gun violence occurred this week.
Both are among the majority of states that provide broad protections for gunowners privacy, according to information compiled by the Sunlight Foundation.
MORE: For data on the gun debate, see the Sunlight Foundation's resource page.
Data pulled from Influence Explorer, a Sunlight Foundation database that tabulates federal campaign contributions from the Center for Responsive Politics and state contributions from the National Institute of Money ...
Continue readingWho are the gun lobbyists?
As Congress grapples with the measures the White House today proposed to combat gun violence--including a ban on assault weapons, strengthing background check laws, and enhancing mental health services--there will be dozens of gun rights lobbyists at the ready, most of them paid by the National Rifle Association. Many have been through Washington's revolving door.
In 2012, gun rights groups hired ten outside lobbying firms to help bolster their reach, according to Influence Explorer. Over all, 42 lobbyists, of whom at least more than half are revolvers, including one former member of Congress, helped spread gun rights' groups message ...
Continue readingOn eve of big legislative battle, is gun lobby targeting kids?
If, as the old newsroom truism holds, it takes three to make a trend, then the National Rifle Association's much talked-about video, which juxtaposes a mention of President Barack Obama's daughters against a backdrop of menacing images of high-powered guns and people toting them, appears to be the latest manifestation of a bizarre new way that the gun lobby is choosing to engage its critics: by targeting their children.
School-age progeny of America's first families have generally been verboten topics in press coverage or political debate because of their age, vulnerability and the fact that -- unlike their ...
Continue readingNRA fights campaign finance reform, disclosure
On a March morning in 2002, the ink of President George W. Bush's signature on the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill hardly had a chance to dry before the attorneys for the National Rifle Association filed the paperwork for a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law.
In fact the NRA's lawyers were so quick on the draw that the group beat the law’s strongest congressional opponent, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to court. Because it filed first, the NRA had earned the naming rights to the high profile case. However, the NRA, which had backed McConnell, himself ...
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