Gun Control vs. Gun Rights

The Issue

Update: Votes on Manchin-Toomey Amendment, 4/17/2013

The Dec. 14, 2012 shootings in Newtown, Conn., which resulted in 28 deaths, including that of the gunman, Adam Lanza, once again turned the spotlight on the debate over gun ownership in the U.S. It has been a political hot potato for years, and one that Congress has dealt with gingerly -- too gingerly, in the view of groups favoring tighter regulation of firearms.

The last major piece of gun control legislation to make it into the U.S. Code was the assault weapons ban, which passed in 1994 as part of a larger crime bill passed by Congress and signed by then-President Bill Clinton. The ban applied to the manufacture of 19 specific models of semi-automatic firearms and to other guns with assault-weapons features. But the ban expired in 2004, and repeated attempts to renew it have failed.

Some Democrats believed their support for the assault weapons ban cost them control of Congress in the 1994 mid-term elections. Whether that's true or not, there's little question that the politics of gun ownership have swung to the right. Republicans largely oppose gun control, and Democrats are split, with some lawmakers cautious about going against the views of more conservative constituencies, especially in rural districts. And in 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in, striking down Washington, D.C.'s blanket ban on handgun ownership in a case known as District of Columbia v. Heller. The ruling established that the Second Amendment to the Constitution -- "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" -- means that individuals, and not just the police and military, may own guns.

The ruling was a narrow one, though, applying only to a person's right to keep a gun at home for self- defense; it doesn't mean that guns can't be regulated in any number of ways. Still, despite various, highly publicized murders and mass shootings -- such as the one in 2007 at Virginia Tech, in which 33 people were killed, the American Civic Association killings in 2009 in Binghamton, N.Y., that took 14 lives, or the 2011 shooting that severely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and killed six -- no gun control measures have made it through the House and Senate in recent years.

The Money

If lawmakers seem to tiptoe around gun issues, it's at least in part because the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups are loaded for bear. Cash is their ammunition, and they have no shortage of it. Gun rights groups have given more than $30 million in individual, PAC and soft money contributions to federal candidates and party committees since 1989, with nearly $27 million -- or 87% -- of it going to Republicans. And in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles, they let loose another $41.2 million (at least) in outside spending, almost all of which has put Democrats in their crosshairs. The NRA has provided the lion's share of the funds, having contributed more than $21 million since '89 and further opening its coffers to make $25 million in outside expenditures.

Gun control groups, by comparison, have been barely a blip on the radar screen. They've given a total of just under $2 million since 1989, of which 94 percent has gone to Democrats. In the 2012 election cycle, they gave only $5,000.

Several new groups on the scene could alter the balance a bit. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg started a pro-gun control super PAC, Independence USA PAC, in 2012; it spent more than $8.3 million in several congressional races that year, with mixed results. Former Rep. Giffords started a super PAC in January, 2013, to counter the NRA's influence; it set a fundraising goal of $16 million to $20 million to spend in the 2014 House and Senate elections. And another anti-NRA PAC launched in February, calling itself Americans for the Protection of Children.

The dominance of gun rights groups when it comes to lobbying Congress and other federal agencies is even greater than it is in the realm of campaign finance. From 1998 through 2012, the gun rights lobby spent $75 million making its case in Washington; in 2012 alone, it spent $5.6 million. The NRA accounted for more than half of the 2012 number, or $2.9 million, but over the years other groups -- such as Gun Owners of America and the National Shooting Sports Foundation -- have also made significant lobbying expenditures. And gun control groups? They spent just $240,000 lobbying in 2012.

Updated March 2013