Patrick Ryan - Honors Thesis

Guns and Gridlock: Examining the NRA’s Legislative
Influence in Congress
Patrick Ryan
Honors Thesis
Department of Political Science
Northwestern University
Advisor: Professor Mary McGrath
May 15, 2020
2
Abstract
When considering the lack of expansive gun control legislation at the federal level in the United
States, many blame the influence of the National Rifle Association (NRA) both on elections and
on the behavior of members of Congress. Much research studies the effect of NRA lobbying and
mobilization efforts on elections, but virtually no research examines the effect of the NRA on
legislative outcomes. It is important to study the NRA’s influence in Congress to help explain the
lack of federal gun control legislation and the influence of interest groups in Congress. This
paper combines quantitative and qualitative analysis to analyze how NRA lobbying and
mobilization efforts affect the proposal of gun-related legislation in Congress between the 102nd
and 115th Congresses. The quantitative aspect relies on an original dataset that compiles all
federal gun-related legislation between 1991 and 2018 and datasets that cover various NRA
expenditures. The qualitative aspect uses case studies of the Columbine, Virginia Tech, and
Sandy Hook shootings to examine the responses of the NRA and Congress to each event. The
quantitative results of this analysis indicate a weak relationship between NRA spending and
gun-related bill proposals in Congress. The qualitative results provide evidence that proposals of
gun control legislation decrease markedly following instances of significant NRA mobilization
efforts. This research suggests that NRA spending has weak influence on the proposal of
legislation and provides new insights into a previously under-researched dimension of NRA
power: the NRA mobilizes its membership base to keep gun control legislation off the
Congressional agenda altogether.
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Table of Contents
List of Figures and Tables………………………………………………………….....……....p. 4
Acknowledgements…………………………………………..………………………………..p. 5
Chapter 1: Introduction………………………………………………………………………p. 6
Chapter 2: Special Interest Groups, the Congressional Process,

and the Intersection of the National Rifle Association………………………..p. 13
Chapter 3: The National Rifle Association…………………………………………………p. 28
Chapter 4: Theory, Research Design, and Methodology………………………………….p. 50
Chapter 5: Quantitative Results…………………………………………………………….p. 69
Chapter 6: Case Studies: Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook………………….p. 96
Chapter 7: Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...p. 130
Glossary of Key Concepts………………………………………………………………….p. 137

4
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
Figure 1, Chap. 4: Congress.gov Search Tool…………………………………………………p.

62
Figure 2, Chap. 5: Equality of Proportions Test Results………………...………………..........p.
70
Figure 3, Chap. 5: Pro-Gun Bill Proposals in Congress 1990-2018……………………………p.
75
Figure 4, Chap. 5: Anti-Gun Bill Proposals in Congress 1990-2018…………………………..p.
76
Figure 5, Chap. 5: Pro- and Anti-Gun Bill Proposals in Congress 1990-2018……....………...p.
77
Figure 6, Chap. 5: Anti-Gun Bill Proposals in Congress with Unified Government….………p.
78
Figure 7, Chap. 5: Pro- and Anti-Gun Bill Proposals, 1990s………………………………….p.
81
Figure 8, Chap. 5: Columbine Aftermath………………………………………………………p.
82
Figure 9, Chap. 5: Pro- and Anti-Gun Bill Proposals, 2000s………………………………….p.
84
Figure 10, Chap. 5: Virginia Tech Aftermath…………………………………………………p. 86
Figure 11, Chap. 5: Pro- and Anti-Gun Bill Proposals, 2010-2018……………………………p.
88
Figure 12, Chap. 5: Sandy Hook Aftermath…………………………………………………..p. 88
Tables
Table 1, Chap. 4: Summary of Hypotheses…………………………………………………….p.

57
5
Table 2, Chap. 4: Pro-Gun Bill Definitions………………………………….…………………p.

63
Table 3, Chap. 4: Anti-Gun Bill Definitions…………………………………………………..p. 64
Table 4, Chap. 4: Gun-Related Bill Provisions Not Coded………………………………..…..p.
65
Table 5, Chap. 5: Equality of Proportions and T-Test Results…………………………...…...p. 73
Table 6, Chap. 5: Regression Results.………...………………...………………………….....p. 91
Table 7, Chap. 5: New York Times Coverage of Mass Shootings…...……………………….p. 98
Table 8, Chap. 6: NRA vs. Congressional Responses to Mass Shootings…………………...p. 102
Table 9, Chap. 6: NRA vs. Congressional Responses to Columbine………………………..p. 111
Table 10, Chap. 6: NRA vs. Congressional Responses to Virginia Tech……………………p. 118
Table 11, Chap. 6: NRA vs. Congressional Responses to Sandy Hook……………………..p. 126
Acknowledgments
After 13 months of work, this thesis project has finally reached completion, and it could not have
been accomplished without the help of the many individuals who offered me their advice,
guidance, and support. First, I would like to thank my fantastic advisor Professor Mary McGrath
for her advice and guidance throughout the entire process, especially on the statistical analysis in
the project. I would also like to thank Professor Stephen Nelson and Laura Garcia for teaching a
phenomenal honors thesis class during the Fall and Winter quarters and for their continued
guidance and feedback as my project evolved throughout the year. In addition, I would like to
thank Matthew Lacombe, who inspired the idea for this project and graciously shared some of
his research on the NRA with me. I would also like to thank Paula Miller for her help with
generating the graphics in this study. Finally, I would like to thank my Mom and Dad and my
friends for listening to me discuss this project with them endlessly and for motivating me to work
hard and make this project the best that it could be.
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Chapter 1
Introduction
Just after 9:30 a.m. on December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza shattered the glass of a
locked security door with a flurry of bullets and entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in
Newtown, Connecticut. He was armed with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, two semiautomatic
pistols, and several hundred rounds of ammunition. Lanza was immediately confronted by the
school’s principal and school psychologist, both of whom he shot and killed. As the gunshots
erupted, the school immediately went into lockdown, with children hiding in closets and behind
desks while teachers barricaded classroom doors with furniture. Lanza then proceeded through
the school, forcing his way into a first grade classroom where he shot and killed the teacher and
14 first-graders. He then proceeded to an adjacent first grade classroom, where he shot and killed
7
that teacher and 6 more first-graders. By the time police arrived on scene and entered the
building, 27 people lay dead, including Lanza, who had shot and killed himself. 1
The horrific tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School terrified Americans across the
country. The extreme brutality of Sandy Hook combined with the young average age of the
victims immediately placed this shooting and the debate over gun control legislation at the
forefront of the news and political discourse in December 2012 and the first half of 2013. With
the horror of the Newtown shooting, President Obama’s recent reelection, a “fractious and
self-doubting” Republican Party, ardent gun control support from New York Mayor Michael
Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns alliance, and overwhelming public support for
universal background checks, the political climate appeared perfectly ripe for the passage of
gun-control legislation.2
Senator Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia, led the charge on this
front. Despite being a gun owner himself and a lifelong proponent of gun owners’ rights,
Manchin introduced legislation that would require universal background checks for all
commercial sales. With this legislation, Manchin opposed the wishes of the National Rifle
Association (NRA) for the first time in his 30-year political career; Manchin was a card-carrying
member of the NRA with a lifetime membership. 3 Background checks have been federally
mandated for firearm purchases from licensed dealers since 1994, but this rule did not include
1
“Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting | Facts & Timeline,” Encyclopedia Britannica,
accessed December 7, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/event/Newtown-shootings-of-2012.
2
Robert Draper, “Inside the Power of the N.R.A.,” The New York Times, December 12, 2013,
sec. Magazine,
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/magazine/inside-the-power-of-the-nra.html.
3
Draper; Amanda Terkel, “Joe Manchin Keeping NRA Membership, Despite Group’s Extreme
Views,” HuffPost, 10:20 400AD,
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-manchin-nra-membership_n_3118602.
8
sales made online or at gun shows.4 The Manchin bill was an amendment to existing federal gun
laws and was aimed at closing the background check loopholes for online and gun show sales.
Considered one of the most fearsome lobbying groups in Washington, the NRA strongly
opposes almost all efforts to restrict gun ownership, and their opposition to Manchin’s bill was
no different. Senator Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, scheduled the bill for a vote on
April 17, 2013. Two days prior, the NRA sent an email to all senators announcing that the
organization would “vehemently oppose” the Manchin bill.5 In addition, the NRA announced
that it would factor in votes on this bill into its grading system of legislators. The NRA gives
each member of Congress a letter grade premised on their votes supporting or opposing gun
control legislation. According to Draper (2013), in some conservative states, many legislators
believe that these grades can be determinative in elections, and therefore act in accordance with
NRA preferences to avoid receiving a bad grade.
Finally, senators’ offices were flooded with phone calls from NRA members calling to
voice their opposition to the bill; in Manchin’s office, the ratio was 200 to one in opposition.6 In
the two days preceding the scheduled vote on the bill, the NRA used every piece of its political
weight to lobby against the bill. Despite a Democrat-controlled Senate, a generally favorable
political climate for the passage of gun control legislation, and overwhelming public support for
the background checks bill, the Manchin bill failed to gain the necessary votes to advance past
the Senate on April 17, 2013, just four months after the Sandy Hook tragedy. The NRA had
prevailed in its efforts to block anti-gun legislation once again.
4
Harry Reid, “S.649 - 113th Congress (2013-2014): Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of
2013,” webpage, April 18, 2013, https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/649.
5
Draper, “Inside the Power of the N.R.A.”
6
Draper.
9
This pattern has occurred often in recent American history: news of a horrific shooting
episode shocks the nation, polling data collected in the aftermath illustrates that public opinion
overwhelmingly supports more expansive gun control laws, yet the laws do not change
commensurate with the amount of public support for gun control. The lack of more expansive
gun control legislation in the United States is often presumed to be chiefly a result of the NRA’s
strength as an interest group. This study will critically examine this presumption by evaluating
how the NRA uses various mechanisms to influence the behavior of legislators, defined as
modes of influence,7 to attempt to change the behavior of legislators and ultimately secure
legislative outcomes that are in line with the organization’s policy preferences.
The question examined in this study is: does the NRA’s opposition to gun control through
its various modes of influence reduce the number of gun control bills proposed in Congress? The
answer to this question will provide important insights into whether the NRA has significant
influence in the legislative process. Understanding the extent of the NRA’s influence on the
legislative process will help to provide at least a partial answer to the puzzle of a lack of gun
control legislation in the U.S. despite overwhelming public support for action against gun
violence.
It is important to note that this study examines the legislative influence of the NRA, as
opposed to the electoral influence. Electoral influence is defined as a special interest group’s
effectiveness at using its resources to get favored candidates elected. There is a fair amount of
existing research that evaluates the NRA’s effectiveness in helping to elect its favored
candidates,8 but very little research conducted on the legislative influence of the NRA.
7
Paul Burstein and C. Elizabeth Hirsh, “Interest Organizations, Information, and Policy
Innovation in the U.S. Congress,” Sociological Forum 22, no. 2 (2007): 174–99,
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1573-7861.2007.00012.x.
8
Good examples of this research are: Douglas Schoen, “The Myth of NRA Power: What the
NRA Really Means in American Politics Today,” Medium, January 6, 2016,
10
Legislative influence is defined as a special interest group’s effectiveness at using its resources to
achieve legislative outcomes that are in line with its policy preferences. Further, a legislative
outcome does not only include the passage or defeat of a particular piece of legislation; it also
includes whether a bill is proposed in the first place.
Keeping bills off of the Congressional agenda altogether is a key element of the NRA’s
power. Research on the NRA has partially examined this issue while focusing on key pieces of
gun control legislation, advancing the general theory that through lobbying efforts, the NRA has
successfully helped defeat several key pieces of gun control legislation in Congress. However, no
study has yet systematically examined the influence of the NRA on the proposal of all
gun-related legislation in Congress. The proposal of bills is an interesting unit to study because
of the NRA’s goal of keeping legislation off the agenda altogether. To study bill proposals, this
study measures the number of gun-related bills proposed in Congress over time.
This study will rely on a mixed-methods research design, using both quantitative and
qualitative methods to evaluate whether the NRA has a significant influence on anti-gun bill
proposals in Congress. The quantitative portion of this study discussed in Chapter 5 illustrates
the relationship between the number of gun-related bills proposed in Congress and three key
aspects of the NRA’s lobbying power: NRA campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures, and
advertising expenditures. Examining the relationship between gun-related bill proposals and
these variables will establish an initial inference about whether the NRA’s money has significant
influence on bill proposals in Congress.
https://medium.com/@klerer/the-myth-of-nra-power-what-the-nra-really-means-in-american-poli
tics-today-e4a786b4bdad; and
Charlotte Hill, “The Real Reason the NRA’s Money Matters in Elections,” Vox, February 27,
2018,
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/2/27/17051560/money-nra-guns-contributions-donations
-parkland-march.
11
The qualitative portion of this study discussed in Chapter 6 examines the responses of the
NRA and Congress in case studies of three mass shootings: Columbine in 1999, Virginia Tech in
2007, and Sandy Hook in 2012. The use of case studies provides an opportunity to consider more
potential confounding variables than quantitative analysis could alone, which allows for
refinement of the initial quantitative inference. The three case studies presented in this study
illustrate a key inference: gun control bill proposals decrease markedly following instances of
NRA membership mobilization in the aftermath of mass shootings.
In sum, this study ties together several areas of political science research, including
research into special interest group influence in Congress, the Congressional process, and studies
of the NRA’s history and influence in American politics. Through a review of key literature,
quantitative and qualitative analysis, and evaluation of findings, this study will provide important
insights into the NRA’s power and influence over the legislative process in Congress.
Summary of Chapters
Chapter 2 forms the first half of the literature review and discusses existing research into
special interest groups and the Congressional legislative process. This discussion will summarize
prevailing theories of special interest group power, provide an overview of the Congressional
legislative process, and describe the intersection of special interest group power with Congress
and the legislative process.
Chapter 3 forms the second half of the literature review and discusses existing research
into the National Rifle Association (NRA). This research spans several topics, namely the
organization’s history, theories of the NRA’s power, and analysis of the cultural aspects of the
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NRA and its intersection with the Republican Party. The summary of research into the NRA
informs the theory advanced in this study and the analysis in later chapters.
Chapter 4 presents the theory, hypothesis, and methodology advanced in this study. As
stated earlier, this study relies on a mixed-method research design, employing both quantitative
and qualitative methods. This chapter will provide a detailed breakdown of the research design
and the hypothesis being tested.
Chapter 5 presents the quantitative results in this study. It is divided into three
sub-sections: (I) examining how bill proposals and NRA campaign contributions deviate from
the average levels of proposals and contributions, (II) examining fluctuations in bill proposals in
the time periods surrounding mass shootings at Columbine (1999), Virginia Tech (2007), and
Sandy Hook (2012), and (III) examining regression analysis of bill proposals in Congress on
NRA campaign contributions, lobbying spending, and advertising spending.
Chapter 6 presents three qualitative case studies of the Columbine, Virginia Tech, and
Sandy Hook shootings and the legislative and NRA responses to each event. This chapter
describes the details of each case, summarizes a wealth of qualitative research into each event,
and examines how the NRA response affected bill proposals in Congress.
Chapter 7 presents this study’s main conclusions and findings, identifies potential
avenues for future research, and discusses implications for the future of the gun control debate,
the NRA, and gun policymaking in Congress.

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Chapter 2
Special Interest Groups, the Congressional Process, and the Intersection of the NRA
This chapter will provide analysis of two key topics crucial to understanding the data analysis in
later chapters, and it is divided into two sub-sections. The first sub-section will examine Special
Interest Groups, while the second sub-section will examine the Congressional Process,
Lobbyists, and the Role of the NRA.
Special Interest Groups
Special Interest Groups (SIGs) play a pivotal role in American politics. These groups
advocate for their specific concerns by lobbying members of Congress, contributing donations to
candidates, and mobilizing voters that promise to vote for their issues during elections, among
many other activities. Many of these groups have the power to dramatically alter what legislation
is proposed in Congress and to partially influence the outcome of elections. This study examines
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the activities of the National Rifle Association in Congress, but general knowledge of SIGs is
essential to developing a more complete understanding of the NRA.
As referenced in Chapter 1, an important concept in this analysis of the NRA is the idea
of electoral vs. legislative influence. Electoral influence is a measure of how effectively a special
interest group uses its resources to get its favored candidates elected. Legislative influence is a
measure of how effectively a special interest group uses its resources to achieve legislative
outcomes that are in line with its policy preferences. The NRA engages in both types of
influence, but this study is concerned with examining the impact of the NRA’s legislative
influence in the U.S. Congress.
There is no universally agreed-upon definition of special interest groups in political
science literature, mostly because of the numerous groups and organizations representing a
variety of different people and interests. However, most SIGs tend to fall within three broad
categories: (1) groups representing business interests, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or
Oil or Gas SIGs, (2) groups representing occupational interests, such as the American Federation
of Teachers, and (3) groups representing issues that are in the “public interest,” such as Mothers
Against Drunk Driving, the National Right to Life Organization, and the National Rifle
Association.9
According to the NRA’s website, it is “America’s longest-standing civil rights
organization.” It boasts that “together with our more than five million members, we’re proud
defenders of history’s patriots and diligent protectors of the Second Amendment.” 10 The NRA
falls into the category of a “public interest” special interest group because of its commitment to
defending the right to bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment. Its primary goal as a
9
Gene M. Grossman and Elhanan Helpman, Special Interest Politics (MIT Press, 2001).
10
“About the NRA,” accessed February 4, 2020, https://home.nra.org/about-the-nra/.
15
special interest group is to oppose any legislation aimed at restricting the right to own firearms.
As an extension of that, its secondary goal is to fight the election prospects of any candidate who
threatens to implement gun regulations if elected to office.
According to Lacombe (2019), the NRA is an interesting case in the study of interest
group influence because its seemingly notable political clout is not well explained by existing
theories of group power.11 Prior political science research has provided helpful frames for
thinking about special interest group power in general, which are useful when considering how
to evaluate the NRA’s power. Several of these frames will be discussed in turn.
One key frame for thinking about special interest group power is advanced by
Schumaker (1975), who identifies three types of “responsiveness” of legislators: (1) access
responsiveness, (2) agenda responsiveness, and (3) policy responsiveness.12 Access
responsiveness is defined as the extent to which authorities are willing to hear the concerns of a
particular interest group. The behavior of legislators when high-profile gun control bills are
proposed has illustrated that the NRA maintains a high degree of access responsiveness.
Legislators seem to be willing to hear the concerns of NRA lobbyists and to pay attention to
NRA policy positions and threats in response to the proposal of gun control bills. A perfect
example of this is evidenced in the days leading up to the vote on the Manchin background
checks bill proposed after the Sandy Hook shooting. The NRA made a number of threats,
lobbied legislators aggressively, and the bill failed to achieve the votes necessary to pass the
Democratic-controlled Senate.
11
Matthew J. Lacombe, Gunning for the Masses: How the NRA Builds Political Power, Work in
Progress, 2019.
12
Paul D. Schumaker, “Policy Responsiveness to Protest-Group Demands,” The Journal of
Politics 37, no. 2 (1975): 488–521, https://doi.org/10.2307/2129004.
16
Schumaker’s second type of responsiveness, agenda responsiveness, is defined as the
willingness of legislators to place an issue item on the political agenda via proposing and voting
on a bill that addresses the issue. The NRA’s high degree of access responsiveness appears to
influence legislators’ agenda responsiveness on gun-related legislation. When the NRA actively
engages in lobbying and member outreach using their various modes of influence, it seems that
legislators are less willing to place gun control on the legislative agenda. This presumption is
what will be quantitatively examined in later chapters.
Finally, Schumaker’s notion of policy responsiveness is defined as the degree to which
legislators adopt legislation or policy that is congruent with the demands of the protest group.13
The notion of policy responsiveness is an interesting consideration when discussing the NRA
because advocating for legislation that protects the rights of gun owners is not the principal aim
of the organization. Rather, the NRA is more often seeking to defeat proposed legislation that
seeks to further regulate firearms. In this regard, legislators actually have low policy
responsiveness to the NRA based on the simple fact that the NRA, unlike most special interest
groups, is more often seeking to defeat proposed legislation as opposed to advocating for it.
Another frame of special interest group power that will help guide this analysis is the idea
of “differential responsiveness.”14 Cobb and Elder (1971) define the concept of differential
responsiveness as the differing levels of attention that legislators give to a special interest group’s
concerns. There are several factors that can cause differential responsiveness, three of which are
useful to understanding how the activities of the NRA correspond with the activities of other
interest groups.
13
Schumaker.
14
Roger W. Cobb and Charles D. Elder, “The Politics of Agenda-Building: An Alternative
Perspective for Modern Democratic Theory,” The Journal of Politics 33, no. 4 (1971): 892–915,
https://doi.org/10.2307/2128415.
17
First, the legislator or “decision maker” may be indebted to a group or personally identify
as a member of the group. Legislators are more likely to be responsive to interest groups that
have supported them in elections or if they are members of those groups. In the case of the NRA,
the organization has supported both Democrats and Republicans over time, but in recent years
has turned almost entirely to supporting the Republican Party. For instance, the NRA donated to
115 Democratic U.S. House candidates in 1992, to 65 in 2010, and to only 4 in 2016.15 Though
the NRA’s partisan allegiances have shifted away from the Democratic Party over the last three
decades, legislators of either party receiving NRA campaign contributions have typically been
responsive to the group’s legislative interests. Furthermore, some members of Congress are
themselves members of the NRA, and because of this, they are more likely to support the NRA’s
legislative interests.
Second, some interest groups possess more resources than others or are able to better
mobilize their resources.16 In the court of public opinion, the NRA is perceived to be financially
strong. Therefore, NRA spending is often blamed for the lack of gun control bills. In 2017, the
NRA spent at least $4.1 million on lobbying, which is a figure that many perceive to be a
significant lobbying expenditure.17 However, lobbying groups like the National Association of
Realtors spent $32.2 million and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest spender of all
interest groups in 2017, spent $104 million on lobbying expenses.18 These statistics illustrate the
point that the NRA’s spending, while seemingly significant in terms of its raw amount, is minor
15
Harry Enten, “The NRA Used to Be Much More Bipartisan. Now It’s Mostly Just a Wing of
the GOP,” CNN, February 24, 2018,
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/24/politics/nra-partisan-bipartisan-republican/index.html.
16
Cobb and Elder, “The Politics of Agenda-Building.”
17
Dominic Rushe, “Why Is the National Rifle Association so Powerful?,” The Guardian, May 4,
2018, sec. US news,
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/17/nra-gun-lobby-gun-control-congress.
18
Rushe.
18
when compared to the country’s most power special interest groups. NRA spending simply does
not paint a complete picture of the NRA’s power. In terms of Cobb and Elder’s conception of
interest group resources, perhaps legislators’ high responsiveness to NRA concerns has more to
do with the NRA’s mobilization of resources than its raw amount of resources.
Third, Cobb and Elder (1971) contend that some groups are located so strategically in the
social or economic structures of society that legislators have a very difficult time ignoring their
concerns.19 The examples they provide are big business or agriculture lobbying groups, both of
which are strategically located in the economic structures of American society. The NRA does
not necessarily find itself woven into the economic structure of the U.S. – the gun industry’s total
revenue pales in comparison to the revenue of the country’s largest business entities. However,
the NRA does maintain a place in the social structure of American society, especially in areas of
the country where gun-owning culture is more prevalent. From a cultural and societal
perspective, legislators have a hard time ignoring the NRA because the organization mobilizes
the opinions of gun owners in its lobbying. Many legislators perceive these opinions to be shared
by a significant portion of their constituents and thus pay attention to them at the risk of the NRA
mobilizing against them in the next election.
Schumaker’s three types of legislator responsiveness and Cobb and Elder’s reasons for
differential responsiveness among legislators are two helpful frames for thinking about special
interest groups and the ways in which they interact with legislators. The NRA maintains a high
degree of access responsiveness to its issues among legislators. This is explained by the
organization’s support for certain legislators, its monetary resources, and most importantly, its
embedded role in the social and political structure of society. The NRA is one of the most vocal
SIGs in defending gun rights on the behalf of its five million members, and its perceived political
19
19
clout and active advocacy efforts pressure legislators to pay attention to its demands. Next, a
brief overview of the Congressional process and the ways in which the NRA embeds itself into
this process will be discussed.
The Congressional Process, Lobbyists, and the Role of the NRA
A multitude of factors influence whether bills are passed or stymied in the legislative
process in Congress. The process of proposing a bill, negotiating it out of the committee stage
and onto the chamber floor for a vote, and its ultimate passage by both chambers of Congress
and signature by the President involves many complex steps. Special interest groups often
attempt to exert their influence at each stage of this lawmaking process.
Each chamber of the U.S. Congress has rigorous procedures for the passage of bills.
According to Davidson et al. (2018), “Congress, in short, is a procedural obstacle course that
favors opponents of legislation and hinders proponents. This defensive advantage promotes
bargaining and compromise at each decision point.”20 An example of this defensive advantage is
the fact that the House of Representatives is biased towards majority rule, which means that the
majority party is able to control much of the legislative process.21 As a result, the Speaker of the
House has a great deal of leverage in deciding which bills are scheduled for a vote. If a particular
piece of legislation does not align with the policy preferences of the majority party in the House,
the Speaker, who is a member of the majority party herself, may simply choose not to schedule
that legislation for a vote. In the case of the NRA and gun control legislation, when there is a
Republican majority in the House, gun control legislation is rarely brought up for a vote by the
Republican Speaker.
20
Roger H. Davidson et al., Congress and Its Members (CQ Press, 2017).
21
Davidson et al.
20
An interview conducted with a top Congressional staffer for a House Democrat provides
insights on the difficulties of proposing gun control legislation in a Republican majority House:
“Whoever the Speaker is and whoever the party is that controls the Congress controls the
committees. So, in the past, until 2019 when Democrats took over the house, Republicans
controlled the judiciary committee, which would review these [gun control] bills. They
just never chose to call these bills for a vote. The Speaker can say we’re not going to do
this, and they are not going to make their members take a difficult vote… I think that is
the biggest misconception about Congress. Folks see the Speaker, but they don’t realize
their tendrils extend down to the committees, and even the sub-committees.”22
The Speaker of the House ultimately decides if and when to schedule pieces of legislation
for floor votes in the House. This mechanism is an obstacle to any piece of legislation that does
not align with the Speaker’s policy preferences. In addition to these obstacles, procedural
obstacles in Congress extend back to the committee stage as well. Committees in the House
generally serve both individual and institutional purposes. Individual purposes are the benefits a
Member of Congress can secure for their constituents, and institutional purposes are the expertise
in particular issue areas that Members develop over time.23 In addition, a strand of political
science theory called Partisan Theory suggests that committees are agents of their party
caucuses. Committee members from the majority party are expected to support their party’s
programs, or at a minimum, not advance policies opposed by a majority of their own party.24
Committees are chaired by members of the majority party and these chairmen seek to advance
legislation that is both in line with the preferences of the party and presents a good chance of
eventually becoming law.
Partisan theory is supported by the interview conducted with the Democratic
Congressional staffer:
22
Anonymous, Interview with Top Congressional Staffer for House Democrat, Phone Interview,
January 31, 2020.
23
Davidson et al., Congress and Its Members. Pg. 175
24
Davidson et al. pg. 176
21
“Getting something through committee is difficult – the committees have broad

jurisdiction and 100 different things that they are working on at once. A lot of gun safety
bills go through the judiciary committee…Even though we have Chairman Nadler now in
the judiciary committee, he has to balance the priorities and advance the bills he thinks
have the best chance of getting done.”25
In short, legislation proposed in the House must advance through many stages, most of
which are established through the subcommittees, committees, and Speaker. These are all
controlled by the majority party in the House. These procedural obstacles and the focus on
majority rule in the House make it very difficult for the minority party to pass legislation that is
contrary to the majority’s policy preferences in any way. This characteristic of the House is
important to consider when evaluating the proposal of bills, which is the goal of this study.
In contrast to the House, the Senate has rules that emphasize individual choices and
minority rights.26 The Senate indeed has its own set of obstacles to the quick and effective
passage of legislation. Some of these parliamentary tools include filibusters, holds, objections to
unanimous-consent requests, and non-germane amendments.27 Of these options, the filibuster is a
particularly potent tool for Senators. A filibuster is a provision of Senate rules that allows any
senator or group of Senators to speak continuously and indefinitely in the hope of delaying,
modifying, or defeating legislation.28 In addition, the tool of non-germane amendments allows
Senators to propose amendments to proposed legislation that have no relation to the original bill.
These can often be used as a bargaining tool to reach across the aisle: minority Senators might
propose a non-germane amendment that is contrary to the policy preferences of the majority
party and use it as leverage to secure their votes for a bill supported by the majority party.
Finally, just as in the House, the majority leader in the Senate can choose not to schedule
votes on particular pieces of legislation that are contrary to the policy preferences of the majority
25
Anonymous, Congressional Staffer Interview.
26
27
28
22
party. The filibuster, the use of non-germane amendments, and decisions to not schedule
legislation for votes are three examples of the many procedural obstacles inherent in the Senate’s
rules.
With knowledge of the procedural obstacles to the passage of legislation in mind, it is
important to consider how legislators make the decision to draft bills on particular issues and the
characteristics of that process. This understanding will provide an additional theoretical
framework for understanding the power of special interest groups in Congress.
In Congress, there are particular issues that command legislators’ attention more than
others and lead to the proposal of a bill addressing the issue. This concept is best described as
agenda setting. Cobb and Elder (1971) describe the ways in which an issue becomes part of a
legislative agenda, noting that “for an issue to attain agenda status, it must command the support
of at least some key decision makers, for they are the ultimate guardians of the formal
agenda…it must always be remembered that political leaders are active participants in the
agenda-building process.”29 For an issue to command the support of legislators, voters must
make their ideas and policy preferences known to their representatives in Congress. In addition,
members of Congress use their district and state-level staff to discern issues of importance to the
constituencies they represent. In other words, this process works in both bottom-up (voters
communicating issues to their representatives) and top-down directions (legislative staff reaching
out to communities and voters to discern issues).
Even with the dual process of receiving news about issues bottom-up from constituents
and seeking out issues top-down, members of Congress propose legislation for a variety of
reasons beyond being informed by their constituents. For instance, legislators will often propose
legislation for personal reasons. A good example of this is Representative Carolyn McCarthy
29
23
from New York, who strongly advocated for gun control legislation throughout her time in
Congress. Rep. McCarthy’s husband and adult son were shot on a Long Island Railroad
commuter train in 1993; her husband was killed and her son was permanently disabled after
surviving a gunshot to the head.30 Following this incident, Rep. McCarthy ran for Congress in
1996, and was elected to eight subsequent Congresses.31 She proposed a wide variety of strong
gun legislation while in Congress, and much of this was motivated by her personal experience
and history with gun violence.
Members get ideas for bills from numerous sources, such as the executive branch, interest
groups, scholars, state and local officials, constituents, the media, and their own staff.32 While
many different motivations exist for the proposal of legislation that dictates agenda setting in
Congress, one of the most prominent is the influence of interest groups, which is the focus of this
study. In fact, members of Congress often rely heavily upon lobbyists to gather information
concerning a particular subject area about which they are not familiar. James P. Moran, a former
Democratic representative from Virginia, once said “I would have to say the best information I
get in the legislative process comes from people directly involved in the industry that is going to
be affected – and from people who represent them: the ‘nefarious’ lobbyists.” 33 Legislators are
ultimately the actors that decide whether to support certain issues for debate in Congress, and
their decision-making process is influenced by the strength of special interest groups and the
lobbyists that work for them.

30
Peter Marks, “Train Shooting Victim Speaks For First Time Since Injury,” The New York
Times, December 15, 1993, sec. New York,
https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/15/nyregion/train-shooting-victim-speaks-for-first-time-since-
injury.html.
31
“MCCARTHY, Carolyn | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives,” accessed
February 5, 2020,
https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/M/McCARTHY,-Carolyn-(M000309)/.
32
Davidson et al., Congress and Its Members.
33
24
It is important to note several key lobbying practices employed by interest groups.
Davidson et al. (2018) identify direct lobbying, social lobbying, coalition building, and electronic
advocacy as prominent lobbying practices.34 Of these commonly-used general practices, the
NRA uses three main lobbying strategies: direct lobbying, social lobbying, and electronic
advocacy. In essence, direct lobbying occurs when professional lobbyists working for special
interest groups interact with members of Congress directly to communicate the policy
preferences of the SIG. The NRA employs an average of 20-30 lobbyists each year to interact
with legislators directly to provide information about the organization’s preferences and the
ramifications of different gun control legislation.35 Even more powerful than the NRA’s use of
direct lobbying is its use of social lobbying, which is best defined as mobilizing citizens in
different districts and states to send communications to their representatives and senators.36
Like other special interest groups, the NRA carries out its social lobbying efforts through
email, phone banks, and social media in order to mobilize its network of members to contact
their members of Congress. Finally, electronic advocacy is initiated when special interest groups
use advertisements and social media outlets to convey their message to both members of
Congress and the members of the special interest group. In effect, electronic advocacy often
combines elements of direct and social lobbying because it imparts the message of SIGs to
members of Congress and mobilizes their constituents. The NRA uses a blend of all three
strategies to convey its message to members of Congress.
Lobbyists indeed have significant influence in the legislative process due to their direct
accessibility to legislators and their ability to influence public opinion among the constituents of
34
Davidson et al.
35
The Center for Responsive Politics 1300 L. St NW and Suite 200 Washington, “National Rifle
Assn Lobbyists,” OpenSecrets, accessed February 7, 2020,
https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/lobbyists?cycle=2006&id=d000000082.
36
25
a Member of Congress. However, as Davidson et al. (2018) note, it is a mistake to envision the
relationship of lobbyists and legislators as only involving pressure from one direction. Reverse
lobbying is pervasive and lawmakers often lobby the lobbyists to achieve their policy priorities.37
Much of the existing research on lobbyists basically ignores elected officials and appears
to assume that, like billiard balls, they will go wherever the interest groups send them.38 In
reality, the legislator/lobbyist connection is a two-way street, and legislators have significant
influence on the interactions they have with lobbyists. Ainsworth (1997) argues that legislators
design the rules governing their interactions with lobbyists, which therefore gives them a key
role in determining the extent of interest group influence within a legislature.39 A common
presumption is that special interest groups exert influence on legislators to vote in alignment with
the SIG’s policy preferences, but political science research has shown that presumption to be
inaccurate. The legislator-lobbyist connection is a much more collaborative process in practice.
Because of the interconnection between legislators and lobbyists in Congress, special
interest groups often become aligned with particular political parties that are more likely to
support their policy preferences. According to Herrnson (2009), some groups are so extremely
involved in partisan electoral politics that they are effectively party allies – a vital part of their
party’s “enduring multilayered coalition.”40 Perhaps one of the strongest examples of an interest
group becoming a party ally as well as part of the party’s enduring coalition is the NRA’s
relationship with the Republican Party. Lacombe (2019) notes that the NRA has been able to
37
38
John P. Heinz et al., The Hollow Core: Private Interests in National Policy Making (Harvard
University Press, 1997).
39
Scott H. Ainsworth, “The Role of Legislators in the Determination of Interest Group
Influence,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 22, no. 4 (1997): 517–33,
https://doi.org/10.2307/440341.
40
Paul S. Herrnson, “The Roles of Party Organizations, Party-Connected Committees, and Party
Allies in Elections,” The Journal of Politics 71, no. 4 (October 2009): 1207–24,
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022381609990065.
26
consistently use its alignment with the Republican Party to protect and advance its policy
interests.41 Since 1980 and its endorsement of Ronald Reagan for president, the NRA has
cultivated an extremely close relationship with the GOP. Since Reagan’s election, the NRA
almost exclusively supports Republican candidates, and its members have become increasingly
reliable Republican voters.42 Furthermore, the GOP has become a staunch supporter of the
NRA’s gun rights agenda and has made it nearly impossible to enact meaningful gun control laws
throughout the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s.43
In conclusion, the passage of any given bill into law is a complex and arduous process,
with a wide variety of actors seeking to influence the process at every stage. Of the thousands of
bills introduced each year, Congress takes up relatively few; during the 114th Congress
(2015-2017), 10,233 public bills and joint resolutions were introduced, but only 329 (3.3
percent) became public laws, many naming post offices and federal buildings.44 This is a result of
a number of different factors: the more popular use of omnibus or megabills, which are large
bills covering a number of various issues, the complexity of modern issues, the intensity of
partisanship, and special interest group influence.45 Though all of these factors influence the
passage of legislation, the source that tends to attract the public’s attention more than any other is
the influence of special interest groups, and the relationship between these groups and
legislators. This public attention is especially prominent surrounding the debate over gun control
laws, the NRA, and the effect of the NRA on members of Congress. Chapter 3 is devoted to an
41
Lacombe, Gunning for the Masses: How the NRA Builds Political Power.
42
Lacombe.
43
Matthew Lacombe, “Analysis | Trump Is at the NRA Today. It Didn’t Used to Be a Republican
Ally.,” Washington Post, accessed February 8, 2020,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/26/how-nra-became-core-member-republican-
coalition/.
44
45
Davidson et al.
27
overview and analysis of the NRA: who they are, what they do, and why they are such a
prominent interest group in American politics.
Chapter 3
The National Rifle Association
This chapter is broken into three sub-sections: (1) Overview of the National Rifle Association,
which presents a brief history of the organization and its efforts to oppose gun control legislation,
(2) Gun Owning Culture and the NRA, which examines the NRA’s relationship to the culture of
gun owners in America, and (3) NRA Modes of Influence, which summarizes some of the NRA’s
main lobbying strategies.

28
Overview of the National Rifle Association
This section presents an overview of the history of the NRA and its role in contemporary
American politics. Understanding the group’s history and evolution since its founding is
necessary to understand the full scope of the modern NRA’s power and influence in
contemporary politics. Discussing instances of NRA opposition to gun control throughout the
group’s history provides insights into how the organization developed its power and how it uses
its power today.
The NRA is the most prominent gun rights special interest group in the United States.
Currently headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, the NRA was founded in 1871 following the Civil
War. Since its founding as a group originally designed to promote rifle shooting and
marksmanship,46 the NRA has transformed into one of the most well-known special interest
groups and is considered one of the most potent lobbying forces in Washington.
At its inception in 1871, the NRA was comprised mostly of former Union soldiers. Its
focus on promoting rifle shooting and marksmanship was intended to promote the military
preparedness of militias in the post-Civil War era.47 In addition, the early NRA also promoted
rifle marksmanship by sponsoring shooting competitions with the assistance of the National
Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice (NBPRP), which was established in 1903 with the
support of Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt.48 By establishing this organization,
Congress had decided to appropriate funds for annual marksmanship contests. Because the
NBPRP was so closely linked with the NRA, it also marked the beginning of the NRA’s receipt
of federal funding for its operations. By 1906, with the help of federal funding, the NRA had
46
Lacombe, Gunning for the Masses: How the NRA Builds Political Power. Pg. 14
47
Lacombe.
48
“About the Civilian Marksmanship Program,” Civilian Marksmanship Program (blog),
accessed February 9, 2020, http://thecmp.org/about/.
29
emerged from a period of relative decline in the 1890s, becoming an organization that was larger,
more diverse, and stronger than in the past.49 The relationship between the NRA and the federal
government at the turn of the century was notable because the objectives of the organization
reflected the convictions of America’s leaders. 50 Shooting was a much bigger part of the national
culture, and this was one of the few instances of widespread alignment between America’s
leadership and the preferences of the NRA and its members.
The 1930s marked one of the first significant periods of NRA opposition efforts to the
passage of gun control legislation. This decade was notable in the organization’s history because
it included the first ever instances of the NRA appealing to its membership base to oppose
proposed legislation. The first such piece of legislation was the National Firearms Act of 1934,
which was the first federal gun control law and part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New
Deal for Crime.” The law levied a $200 tax on the manufacture or sale of machine guns and
sawed-off shotguns, and it was mandated that all sales of these weapons be recorded in a national
registry.51 While the National Firearms Act was ultimately signed into law, the NRA was
successful at weakening provisions of the legislation prior to its passage.52
While this bill was being debated in Congress, the NRA successfully used its publications
and telegrams to convince its members that the passage of this bill would accomplish two
objectives: (1) threaten their Second Amendment right to own guns and (2) increase crime and
49
Alexander DeConde, Gun Violence in America: The Struggle for Control (Northeastern
University Press, 2001).
50
DeConde.
51
“History of Gun-Control Legislation - The Washington Post,” accessed February 10, 2020,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/history-of-gun-control-legislation/2012/12/22/80c8d6
24-4ad3-11e2-9a42-d1ce6d0ed278_story.html.
52
Carol Skalnik Leff and Mark H. Leff, “The Politics of Ineffectiveness: Federal Firearms
Legislation, 1919-38,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
455, no. 1 (May 1, 1981): 48–62, https://doi.org/10.1177/000271628145500106 cited in:
30
diminish gun owners’ ability to defend themselves. 53 This messaging was an example of a
personal, identity-based appeal to gun owners. Rather than suggesting that the legislation had
inherent Constitutional or practical limitations, the NRA framed it in personal terms – the
legislation was not threatening the Second Amendment, it was threatening gun owners’ Second
Amendment rights. The effect of this identity-based messaging was powerful, evidenced by the
resulting mass mobilization (and continued threat of mass mobilization) of its members against
the bill. Congressional offices were flooded with mail from NRA members expressing
disapproval of the bill.54 This mobilization campaign was the NRA’s first significant use of
mobilization against proposed legislation and the principal reason for the weakening of the
legislation prior to passage.
The NRA mobilized against gun control legislation again four years later following the
proposal of the Federal Firearms Act (FFA) of 1938. This law required the licensing of interstate
gun dealers and mandated that these dealers record their sales.55 The NRA’s influence was
apparent during the process of proposing this legislation, as the FFA was written in order to gain
the approval of the NRA and to avoid another mass mobilization campaign as was seen with the
National Firearms Act (NFA).
Despite the best attempts of Congress to draft the NFA in line with the NRA’s
preferences, the NRA still mobilized its membership against this legislation. The organization
contacted its members via telegram and notices in its publications, urging them to contact their
representatives in Congress to oppose the legislation.56 Following the initial proposal of the bill,
subsequent revisions substantially weakened its core provisions. Lacombe (2019) argues that the
53
54
Lacombe.
55
“History of Gun-Control Legislation - The Washington Post.”
56
31
NRA supported the ultimate piece of legislation for two reasons: 1) it used its influence in the
drafting of the bill to insert a clause that rendered it nearly impossible to enforce, and 2) it saw
the passage of this weak bill as an opportunity to preempt additional, stronger legislation.57
Though the NFA and FFA passed, each piece of legislation was much weaker than the original
version proposed. This was largely a result of the organization’s first significant attempt at
mobilizing its membership base to block the passage of gun control legislation. The NRA’s use
of member mobilization in the 1930’s was the first instance of a political strategy that would
become a centerpiece of its lobbying efforts in future decades.
Leading up to and following the debate over these laws in the 1930s, the NRA was
growing very rapidly. The organization had grown to 10,000 members by 1924, and numbered
50,000 by 1940.58 Though the NRA continued to grow following the policy battles of the 1930s,
it remained less politically active during the 1940s and 1950s as gun control had largely left the
national political agenda during those years.59 This would change upon the arrival of the 1960s.
The 1960s brought the debate over gun control back to the forefront of American politics
following the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. in
1968, and Robert Kennedy in 1968. These killings of high-profile individuals combined with
rising crime rates across the country returned gun control legislation to the political agenda of the
day. The fight to pass gun control laws was spearheaded by Lyndon B. Johnson, who ultimately
won passage of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and the Gun Control
Act of 1968.60 The Gun Control Act eventually became the primary federal law regulating
firearms, but did not pass without facing staunch NRA opposition in the process.
57
Lacombe. Pg. 201
58
Lacombe.
59
Sarah Gray, “Here’s a Timeline of the Major Gun Control Laws in America,” Time, April 30,
2019, https://time.com/5169210/us-gun-control-laws-history-timeline/.
60
“History of Gun-Control Legislation - The Washington Post.”
32
Lacombe (2019) notes that throughout the 1960s, the NRA mobilized its base of
supporters through articles published in the organization’s magazine, American Rifleman, asking
its members to take action and contact legislators to “protect the Second Amendment” and to
“preserve our heritage to keep and bear arms.”61 Just as in the 1930s, the NRA’s message to
supporters relied on an appeal to the necessity of firearms for self-defense, but also linked gun
rights with the notion of individual liberty guaranteed by the Second Amendment. Through these
appeals to supporters, the NRA was able to mobilize its members to contact members of
Congress, and this successfully weakened the proposed gun control legislation before its ultimate
passage.
Taken together, the NRA’s activity following the proposal of the FFA and NFA in the
1930s and the proposal of these gun control laws in the 1960s illustrates a pattern. When gun
control legislation that tightens restrictions on guns is proposed, the NRA mobilizes against it by
appealing to its membership base, which includes calls to action imploring NRA members to
contact legislators. The NRA’s behavior following proposal of gun control legislation in the
1930s and 1960s illustrate that mobilization of its membership base had become a signature
mode of influence for the organization.
In addition, the period of the 1960s and early 1970s initiated the weakening of the NRA’s
previously strong relationship with the federal government.62 Prior to 1970, the NRA maintained
independence from both political parties for two main reasons: 1) gun control was not an issue
fully embraced by either party, and 2) the NRA received substantial financial support from the
federal government and therefore did not want to risk losing that funding by supporting one party
over another. However, the NRA’s strenuous objections to the gun control legislation of the
61
62
Lacombe. Pg. 36
33
1960s, its changing messaging to its supporters about the importance of gun rights, and its
support for Republican politicians initiated the organization’s shift away from partisan
independence.
During this period, the NRA was divided by two competing ideological factions within
the organization. One faction was the “old guard,” a group of senior members favoring a
non-partisan approach to politics. The other faction was the “new guard,” a group of activist
members and lower-level leaders who desired “to take the organization in a more politically
hardline and partisan direction.”63 This internal conflict was exemplified by the establishment of
the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (ILA), the group’s first lobbying organization, in
1975.64 The NRA-ILA is where most of the organization’s energy is directed today.65 The old
guard wanted to keep the ILA small in size, and the new guard desired to continue expanding its
activities and authority.
This conflict brewed throughout the 1970s and culminated in an organizational takeover
by the new guard at the NRA’s annual meeting in 1977 known as the “Revolt at Cincinnati.” The
old guard leadership hoped to keep the organization tethered to its roots as a promoter of
marksmanship and shooting competitions while remaining disassociated from partisan politics,
but their replacement by the new guard forever changed the character of the organization.
Lacombe (2019) notes that the NRA then began “developing new ways to recruit members,
expanding its political operations, and aligning itself with the Republican Party.”66
63
Lacombe. Pg. 16
64
“What Is The NRA? A History, And 9 Facts You Might Not Have Known : NPR,” accessed
February 10, 2020,
https://www.npr.org/2017/10/10/556578593/the-nra-wasnt-always-against-gun-restrictions.
65
Scott Melzer, Gun Crusaders: The NRA’s Culture War (NYU Press, 2009). Pg. 40
66
34
The new guard was comprised of a group of NRA members led by NRA board member
Harlon Carter, the director of the NRA-ILA at the time. This group believed in a core
philosophy: an absolutist stance on opposing any piece of gun control legislation. These rebels
viewed the old guard NRA leaders as elites who lacked the motivation and passion to fight
against gun control legislation; the new guard simply desired more aggression and did not mind
stirring up controversy.67 The word “controversy” succinctly summarizes the difference in
philosophy between the two competing factions. The old guard despised controversy and desired
to remain true to the NRA’s original principles; the new guard thrived on it. Under the leadership
of the new guard, the NRA learned that controversy was not a problem but rather, in many cases,
a solution, a motivator, a recruitment tool, and an inspiration for achieving its objectives.68 NRA
members maintained the power to vote for changes in the NRA governing structure at the annual
conventions as a result of a provision in the NRA bylaws, and the new guard members voted out
the members of the old guard, replacing them with new guard members.69 Once the new guard
assumed power, the old guard never regained control of the organization.
The new guard realized the virtues of the NRA being a single-issue organization and they
had a very simple take on that issue: you’re with us or against us.70 This absolutist philosophy,
combined with the strategies of member mobilization that the organization cultivated throughout
the previous four decades, formed the basis of the NRA’s playbook for responding to gun control
efforts in the later part of the 20th century and leading into the 21st century. The Revolt at
67
Joel Achenbach, Scott Higham, and Sari Horwitz, “How NRA’s True Believers Converted a
Marksman Group into a Gun Lobby,” Washington Post, January 12, 2013, sec. Politics,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-nras-true-believers-converted-a-marksmanship-gr
oup-into-a-mighty-gun-lobby/2013/01/12/51c62288-59b9-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_story.html.
68
Achenbach, Higham, and Horwitz.
69
70
35
Cincinnati in 1977 was the final catalyst for the NRA’s transformation into the gun
rights-supporting political force observed today.
Entering the 1980s, the NRA was becoming a potent political force with a deepening
interconnection with the Republican Party. The NRA’s first ever political endorsement went to
Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign.71 Lacombe (2019) notes that the presidential
election of 1980 firmly solidified the connection between the NRA and the Republican Party.
Following the 1977 Revolt at Cincinnati, the NRA became increasingly more extreme in its
defenses of gun rights and appeals to supporters. Throughout the 1980s, the NRA upheld the
belief that gun control promoters were extreme in their beliefs, desiring to confiscate all firearms
from patriotic citizens.
By promoting this argument to its followers, the NRA frightened many legislators with
its ability to motivate voters that could punish them in the next election.72 DeConde (2001)
argues that President Reagan’s behavior also contributed to the confidence of the gun lobby and
the NRA. President Reagan made his position on gun control very clear, stating that “We are
committed to the idea that it is the criminal who is responsible for violence, not the law abiding
firearms owner. Accordingly, my administration has sought to remove restrictions that operate
only to burden the law abiding.”73 The enthusiastic support from the nation’s highest office
emboldened the NRA as it continued to grow in size and influence throughout the 1980s.
A major turning point for the organization occurred in the early 1990s, which was a
pivotal time for efforts to pass gun control legislation in the United States. The 1989 massacre in
Stockton, California that took the lives of 5 schoolchildren and wounded 33 others on a
71
72
DeConde, Gun Violence in America: The Struggle for Control.
73
DeConde. pg. 223
36
playground74 along with increasing gun violence rates across the country spurred major public
support for increased restrictions on gun ownership. Two notable pieces of legislation were
ultimately passed during the first term of the Bill Clinton administration, which were the Brady
Handgun Violence Prevention Act in 1993 and the Federal Assault Weapons Ban in 1994.
The Brady bill was named after James Brady, President Reagan’s speechwriter who was
shot in the head and permanently disabled during the assassination attempt on President Reagan
in 1981.75 The Brady Law was first introduced in 1987 and had since been proposed, defeated,
and re-introduced numerous times before its eventual passage in 1993. It made background
checks a requirement for all gun purchases from federally licensed gun dealers.76
The Federal Assault Weapons Ban was signed into law by President Clinton in 1994 as
part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994; it amended the federal
criminal code to “prohibit the manufacture, transfer, or possession of a semiautomatic assault
weapon."77 Both of these bills were the products of multi-year legislative battles between the
H.W. Bush and Clinton presidencies and were signature victories for the gun control movement.
However, these bills were not passed without significant and influential opposition from
the NRA. The organization led major mobilization efforts that were intended to defeat the Brady
bill; these appeals, mostly made through editorials and advertisements in the NRA’s magazine
74
Associated Press, “Five Children Killed As Gunman Attacks A California School,” The New
York Times, January 18, 1989, sec. U.S.,
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/18/us/five-children-killed-as-gunman-attacks-a-california-sch
ool.html.
75
Jaime Fuller, “It’s Been 20 Years since the Brady Bill Passed. Here Are 11 Ways Gun Politics
Have Changed.,” Washington Post, February 28, 2014,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/02/28/its-been-20-years-since-the-brady
-law-passed-how-have-gun-politics-changed/.
76
Fuller.
77
Meghan Keneally, “Understanding the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and Why It Ended,” ABC
News, September 13, 2019,
https://abcnews.go.com/US/understanding-1994-assault-weapons-ban-ended/story?id=65546858.
37
American Rifleman, greatly exaggerated the extent of the regulations included in the bill and
framed these regulations in identity rather than policy terms.78 Just as they had done with the
NFA and FFA in the 1930s, the NRA framed the Brady bill as an attack on gun owners
personally, gun-owning culture, and the right to bear arms afforded by the Second Amendment
rather than considering the actual text of the bill and the arguments supporting its passage. This
focus on identity over policy provoked a strong response from gun owners. As in prior periods of
NRA mobilization efforts, gun owners flooded members of Congress with mail and phone calls
opposing the Brady bill.79 Lacombe (2019) notes that following the NRA’s first call to action in
the May 1991 edition of American Rifleman, 5,242 phone calls were made to the White House in
opposition to the Brady bill – the White House had received almost 23,000 letters in opposition
to the bill as well.80
The NRA’s response to the Brady bill provides further evidence of the pattern of NRA
member mobilization that has been identified thus far. When legislation that significantly
strengthens gun legislation is proposed, the NRA consistently relies on the mobilization of its
members to oppose that legislation. The NRA response to the proposal of the Brady bill was
similar to the NRA response to the FFA and NFA in the 1930s and the Gun Control Act of 1968
in two key respects: (1) the NRA actively contacted its members and urged them to contact
members of Congress to express their opposition and (2) a significant number of NRA members
did exactly that.
78
79
Jennifer Mascia, “The Making of the Default Proceed Gun Sale Loophole,” The Trace, July
21, 2015,
https://www.thetrace.org/2015/07/brady-bill-amendment-default-proceed-loophole-amendment-n
ra/.
80
38
Matthew Lacombe (2019) provides careful analysis of these NRA correspondences
during the period following the proposal of both the Assault Weapons Ban and the Brady bill. As
his analysis shows, these letters illustrate the broader conception of NRA power in the late 1980s
and early 1990s. Lacombe states that “letter writers, like the NRA, framed the proposed
regulations in identity terms and clearly felt personally attacked by the regulations; their appeals
emphasized emotion more than policy, and many letter writers appeared misinformed about the
legislation.”81 While the Assault Weapons Ban legislation and Brady bill were being considered
in Congress, the NRA’s mobilization strategy was premised on appeals to fear rather than logic,
and this strategy worked.
The versions of both bills that were ultimately signed into law were far weaker than the
original legislation that had been proposed. For the Assault Weapons Ban, the NRA succeeded in
lobbying legislators to insert a 10-year sunset provision on the law, which meant that the law
would expire in 2004; the GOP-controlled Congress in 2004 voted against renewal of the bill.82
However, though the NRA succeeded in weakening both pieces of legislation, both laws passed
while facing legitimate opposition from the NRA, demonstrating the limits of NRA influence. 83
The late 1990s witnessed a massacre that shocked the nation: the 1999 mass shooting at
Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Two students, 17 and 18 years old, shot and
killed 12 students and one teacher and wounded 23 others before killing themselves.84 While the
United States had experienced mass shootings in the past, Columbine dominated headlines
nonstop for months on end following the shooting. Public support for gun control legislation
81
Lacombe.Pg. 234
82
“What Is The NRA? A History, And 9 Facts You Might Not Have Known : NPR.”
83
84
C. N. N. Library, “Columbine High School Shootings Fast Facts,” CNN, accessed February 11,
2020,
https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/18/us/columbine-high-school-shootings-fast-facts/index.html.
39
surged in response. Juvenile crime bills were quickly introduced and passed in both the House
and Senate.85 However, the House version of the juvenile crime bill did not contain any gun
control provisions, thanks to fierce opposition to such provisions by House Republicans. The
NRA’s allies in the House were able to stall legislative debate on the bill long enough for the
NRA to launch a mobilization campaign against it. 86
The NRA’s efforts to kill legislation proposed in the wake of the Columbine shootings
exemplified many of the lobbying tactics they developed in the second half of the 20th century
and would continue to use in the wake of mass shootings throughout the first two decades of the
21st century. As DeConde (2001) notes, the NRA used tried-and-true tactics that had proven
successful for more than half a century, mobilizing its membership with direct mail, newspaper
advertisements, and more recently, the internet; the organization ran a lobbying tab of more than
$1.5 million during the summer of 1999 to achieve victory after Columbine.87 Members of
Congress received a great quantity of letters and phone calls in opposition to the legislation as a
result of NRA mobilization efforts. 88
Columbine serves as a perfect example of the true power of the NRA as an organization.
Lacombe (2019) notes that even though both the House and Senate were Republican-controlled
in 1999, a majority of members in the Senate and a near majority in the House were open to
passing new regulations, but a small number of gun rights advocates in the House were
successful in slowing the legislative process down long enough to provide the NRA an opening
to mobilize its members to oppose the bill.89 The NRA used its traditional lobbying tactics, its
increasingly strong connection with the Republican Party, and delays in the legislative process to
85
86
Lacombe.
87
88
89
Lacombe. Pg. 250
40
effectively mobilize opposition against the new federal gun control laws proposed in the wake of
Columbine. Both the legislative and NRA responses to Columbine are discussed in much greater
detail in the quantitative analysis in Chapter 5 and the case study of Columbine in Chapter 6.
Following the election of George W. Bush in 2000 and throughout the 2000s, the NRA
continued to grow in size and power while also broadening its influence and relationship with the
Republican Party. During this time, it further developed its “playbook” for responses to mass
shootings, which provided the most viable opportunities to shift public support for tighter gun
control measures. Once a mass shooting occurred, the organization would typically “go silent”
for a period of days and offer a message of sympathy for victims while requesting that the
tragedy not be politicized. Once the initial public outrage had passed, the organization would
begin to engage publicly, with its spokesmen making three general arguments: 1) the Second
Amendment guarantees the fundamental right to bear arms, 2) criminals and society are to blame
for the shooting, not access to guns, and 3) it is not possible to legislate away evil in the world.90
The NRA continued to rely on this playbook throughout the 2000s and 2010s.
A notable example of the prevailing strength of the NRA was the shooting at Virginia
Tech in 2007 and the legislative response to this tragedy. The shooter took the lives of 32
students and himself while injuring 15 others on the campus of Virginia Tech. 91 Both the
legislative and NRA responses to this tragedy are notable for their lack of action. The NRA did
not mobilize support nearly as vigorously as they had in previous instances, such as the Brady
bill and Assault Weapons Ban bill in the 1990s, or the legislation proposed following Columbine.
In addition, legislators did not move aggressively to propose new gun control legislation, despite
the fact that the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 was the worst mass shooting in United States
90
“What Is The NRA? A History, And 9 Facts You Might Not Have Known : NPR.”
91
“Virginia Tech Shooting Leaves 33 Dead - The New York Times,” accessed February 12,
2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/us/16cnd-shooting.html.
41
history at the time. Democrats in Congress had begun to view gun control as a losing issue for
their party. Fearful of the NRA’s ability to mobilize its members against any proposed legislation
and in future elections, Congressional Democrats remained largely silent following the tragedy at
Virginia Tech. Like Columbine, Virginia Tech is discussed in much greater detail in Chapters 5
and 6.
The cases of Virginia Tech and the shooting at Sandy Hook discussed in Chapter 1 will
be analyzed in much further detail as case studies of NRA power in Chapter 6. Understanding a
brief history of the NRA is crucial for understanding the mechanisms of its power and influence
in American politics, which will be analyzed using quantitative and qualitative methods of
analysis in Chapters 4, 5, and 6. Next, it is important to understand some of the main cultural
themes embraced by the NRA as well as the cultural aspects of gun ownership and the gun
owner identity.
Gun Owning Culture and the NRA
It is impossible to understand the full picture of the NRA’s influence on members of
Congress without considering its ties to American “gun culture” and how these ties strengthen its
overall power. As alluded to previously, the NRA’s appeals to its membership constantly link gun
rights to the core American values of freedom and liberty. In his 2009 analysis, Scott Melzer
argues that “for the many gun-owning conservatives and hardcore NRA members who fight the
culture wars, nothing matters more than defending an individual’s right to own and use
guns…This is why the NRA labels any form of gun control legislation, however modest or
limited in its goals or jurisdiction, as a threat to all gun rights and, ultimately, all individual rights
and freedoms.”92 The NRA frequently frames its objections to gun control legislation using this
92
Melzer, Gun Crusaders. Pg. 59
42
slippery slope argument that gun control legislation will lead to a total elimination of rights. This
particular rights-based appeal has proven to be an effective mobilizing strategy, and the NRA has
deployed it repeatedly to oppose gun control legislation.
In addition, the NRA often appeals to supporters by framing proposed gun control
legislation in terms of gun-owner identity. The notion of a distinct gun owner identity is
fundamental to “gun owning” culture in the United States, and the NRA plays a major role in the
cultivation of this social identity. Lacombe (2019) argues that “the [NRA’s] goal is to create a
situation in which those who adopt the identity see themselves as a distinct social group and feel
emotionally tied to the group, associating in-group members with positive characteristics and
perceived out-groups with negative characteristics.”93 Further, the “in-group” social members are
portrayed in very positive terms by the NRA. They are often described as average, patriotic,
law-abiding citizens who are freedom-loving defenders of the American tradition. 94 In contrast,
the “out-group” members, who are usually comprised of the media, politicians, and lawyers, are
portrayed as radical, out-of-touch elitists that ultimately desire the complete elimination of the
right to bear arms.95 This in-group vs. out-group, us vs. them idea has become a signature of
NRA mobilization efforts and has further established a distinct “gun owner” culture and identity
among NRA members.
The NRA’s political approach and messaging use this in-group vs. out-group mentality to
advance both defensive and offensive arguments. Melzer (2009) argues that the NRA’s politics is
an exercise in competing views: part of its politics is defensive, reflecting threats to gun rights,
yet a significant portion of its appeals to gun owners is offensive, portraying gun owners as
93
94
Lacombe. Pg. 28
95
Lacombe.
43
freedom fighters and heroes.96 The NRA casts its members as victims under attack from a tide of
liberal policies, yet at the same time, as loyal patriots, moral “attackers” of perverse liberal
values that undermine basic rights. This dual and contradictory narrative advanced by the NRA
further strengthens the characterizations of gun owners as patriotic freedom-lovers and liberal
elites (politicians, media, lawyers) as anti-American gun-grabbers that are coming not only for
guns, but also for basic rights as well. This is very different from arguing that the proposed
regulations on guns are unlikely to actually reduce crime because of technical flaws contained
within the bill.97 The history of the NRA’s opposition to gun control legislation provides much
evidence that this dual narrative has been effective in mobilizing NRA members against
proposed gun control legislation.
The NRA’s repeated mobilization of its members, active cultivation of a gun owner
identity, and increasing alignment with the Republican Party signal that perhaps the NRA is
more than just a special interest group. Melzer (2009) argues that the NRA is best described as a
social movement organization.98 Social movement organizations are formal, organized groups
that align their goals with a particular social movement in order to implement the goals.99
Today’s NRA aligns itself with modern conservatism and the policy positions and goals of the
Republican Party.
Gun owners who belong to the NRA are even more likely to be or lean Republican: 77%
of gun owning NRA members (as of 2017) either are or lean Republican. 100 Lacombe (2019)
96
97
98
99
Melzer. Pg. 66
100
Kim Parker, “How NRA Members Differ from Other Gun Owners,” Pew Research Center
(blog), July 5, 2017,
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/05/among-gun-owners-nra-members-have-a-uni
que-set-of-views-and-experiences/.
44
contends that the issue positions to which the NRA and its supporters have connected gun rights
closely resemble contemporary conservatism in the U.S. This includes opposition to “big
government,” support for crime policies that focus on harsh punishment, an emphasis on the
usefulness of firearms for defense against criminals, support for a strong military, opposition to
international organizations like the U.N., and support for a constitutionally-protected right to
own and use guns that the protection of a broad range of liberties requires.101 Because the NRA
exceeds the functions of a typical special interest group through its active cultivation of a gun
owner identity and alignment with the Republican Party, a reasonable argument can be made for
its classification as a social movement organization – one that supports, encourages, and
broadens conservatism and support for the Republican Party.
The NRA’s Modes of Influence
A key concept frequently discussed in the study of interest group power is “modes of
influence.”102 As stated in Chapter 1, this concept is defined as the various mechanisms that
special interest groups, such as the NRA, use to influence the behavior of legislators. This study
will critically evaluate how the NRA uses various modes of influence to manipulate the behavior
of legislators and ultimately secure legislative outcomes that are in line with the organization’s
policy preferences. The question being examined in this study is whether the NRA’s opposition
to gun control through its various modes of influence reduce the number of gun control bills
proposed in Congress.
Lacombe (2019) argues that the NRA takes a nuanced, multi-faceted approach to politics
and because of this, it is neither appropriate nor feasible to distill its political efforts down to a
101
102
Burstein and Hirsh, “Interest Organizations, Information, and Policy Innovation in the U.S.
Congress.”
45
single factor.103 For this reason, this study will seek to examine the effect of only some of the
most prominent NRA modes of influence: NRA campaign contributions to federal candidates,
lobbying expenditures, and advertising expenditures. The quantitative analysis in this study is
certainly not comprehensive, but it analyzes several of the most publicly known modes of
influence. These three modes of influence will be briefly summarized in the following
paragraphs.
The first key mode of influence used by the NRA is campaign contributions. Special
interest groups seek to influence the outcomes of elections by donating money to the campaigns
of candidates they want to see elected to office. In the court of public opinion, the NRA is
perceived to have robust financial power and NRA spending is often cited as a main source of
this power. However, research into NRA spending on elections suggests otherwise. In the 2016
election cycle, the NRA donated only $1.1 million to candidates running for Congress; total
donations to House and Senate candidates in the 2016 cycle were $1.7 billion.104 Furthermore, in
an analysis of the 2012 general elections, only 7.47% of the $19.7 million spent by the NRA and
its affiliated political action committees was spent on races in which the NRA-backed candidate
won – a full 92.53% [$18,267,293] of their spending did not meaningfully affect the outcome of
their candidate’s race.105
These findings suggest that the NRA’s donations are an extremely small piece of the
overall donation sums to candidates and that this spending has little actual effect on the outcome
of elections. While this research shows that the electoral influence of the NRA is actually far
103
104
Eric Lipton and Alexander Burns, “The True Source of the N.R.A.’s Clout: Mobilization, Not
Donations,” The New York Times, February 24, 2018, sec. U.S.,
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/24/us/politics/nra-gun-control-florida.html.
105
Schoen, “The Myth of NRA Power: What the NRA Really Means in American Politics
Today.”
46
weaker than commonly thought, no research has yet assessed the influence of the NRA campaign
contributions on the proposal of gun control legislation – campaign contributions are an example
of the organization’s legislative influence. Because of their high public visibility, campaign
contributions will be an independent variable assessed in this study.
A related mode of influence used by the NRA is lobbying, and specifically, the lobbying
of members of Congress. The best way to quantify this particular mode of influence is by
measuring the organization’s total lobbying expenditures. The NRA consistently devotes
significant monetary and organizational resources to lobbying members of Congress using the
NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA), which is the lobbying arm of the organization.
The NRA spent an average of $2.5 million on lobbying expenses between 1998 and 2018, and
over $5 million in both 2017 and 2018.106 However, similar to campaign contributions, the
NRA’s lobbying spending is dwarfed by the country’s top lobbying groups. For example, in
2017, the National Association of Realtors spent $32.2 million and the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, the largest spender of all interest groups in 2017, spent $104 million.107 These
statistics illustrate the point that the NRA’s lobbying spending, while seemingly significant in
terms of its raw amount, is relatively minor in comparison to other prominent interest groups.
Furthermore, there is no existing research assessing the effect of NRA lobbying expenditures on
the proposal of legislation in Congress. This study will seek to fill that gap in research by
examining lobbying expenditures as a key independent variable.
Another mode of influence used by the NRA is advertising, which takes a variety of
forms. The NRA places advertisements advocating for its message and policy positions in a
variety of media, including television ads, newspaper ads, mailings to its members, and in recent
106
“National Rifle Assn Lobbying Profile • OpenSecrets,” accessed February 10, 2020,
https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?id=D000000082.
107
Rushe, “Why Is the National Rifle Association so Powerful?”
47
years, online advertisements on various websites. The NRA spent an average of $18 million per
year on advertising between the years 2004 and 2008, but it has greatly increased that sum since
– between 2013 and 2017, the NRA spent an average of $52 million per year, including nearly
$65 million in 2016.108 These spending figures suggest that advertising is a key mode of
influence leveraged by the NRA.
By flooding popular mediums with ads, the NRA raises its members’ awareness of
threats to gun rights, mobilizing them to oppose or support particular legislation and candidates.
While it is difficult to identify a correlation between the media and what people think, it is easier
to find a relationship between the media and what people think about.109 This argument extends
to advertising as well. Through its extensive advertising efforts, the NRA forces many
Americans, and especially its membership, to think about the gun debate. Because advertising is
such a powerful medium in framing the gun debate and mobilizing NRA supporters, it is a
valuable mode of influence to examine. Similar to the modes of influence discussed earlier, no
study exists that examines the relationship between NRA advertising expenditures and
legislation proposed in Congress. NRA advertising expenditures will be a key independent
variable analyzed in Chapter 5.
It is important to be aware of another key mode of influence, which is the NRA legislator
grading system. Though the NRA grading system will not be quantitatively examined in this
study, it is an important facet of NRA power. According to a 2019 New York Times analysis,
“The group uses ‘A’ ratings to signify consistent support for gun rights and opposition to
108
“National Rifle Association Of America - Nonprofit Explorer - ProPublica,” accessed
February 10, 2020, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/530116130.
109
Jason R. Silva and Joel A. Capellan, “A Comparative Analysis of Media Coverage of Mass
Public Shootings: Examining Rampage, Disgruntled Employee, School, and Lone-Wolf Terrorist
Shootings in the United States,” Criminal Justice Policy Review 30, no. 9 (December 1, 2019):
1312–41, https://doi.org/10.1177/0887403418786556.
48
restrictions; ‘F’ ratings signify the opposite. The group advertises its grades to supporters, who
use them to guide their votes.”110 This is a common tactic used by other interest groups, and it is
widely employed by the NRA in communicating with its membership.
The NRA keeps very close track of votes on gun legislation, and often announces that
certain votes will be “graded.” This means that following the vote, the NRA will re-adjust the
grades they give to members of Congress. For solidly conservative legislators in safe Republican
districts and solidly liberal legislators in safe Democratic districts, this system has little effect.
However, for moderate legislators in swing districts, even a small upgrade or downgrade in their
NRA grade could influence the vote of NRA members. As a result, legislators from districts with
a large number of NRA members are wary of the NRA’s grading system because alienating the
NRA’s membership with a vote for gun control could cost them re-election in the next election.
As outlined in this chapter, the NRA’s organizational history, its relationship with
American gun culture, and its key modes of influence comprise an essential understanding of the
group and provides a foundation for further research exploring the NRA’s legislative influence.
The next chapter will discuss the theory, hypothesis, and methodology advanced in this study.
Chapter 4
Theory, Hypothesis, and Research Design
This chapter outlines a theory of NRA power and how that power relates to legislative influence.
Next, it discusses the hypotheses that will be quantitatively tested. Finally, it discusses the
research design and data collection methods used in the quantitative and qualitative analysis.
Theory Advanced in this Study

110
Maggie Astor and Weiyi Cai, “The N.R.A. Has Trump. But It Has Lost Allies in Congress.,”
The New York Times, August 26, 2019, sec. U.S.,
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/26/us/politics/nra-congress-grade.html.
49
Before discussing the theory underpinning this study, it is important to reiterate how this
study relates to existing research on the topic of special interest group power in American
politics and specifically, NRA power in American politics. First, this study examines the
legislative influence of the NRA, not the electoral influence. As stated earlier, electoral influence
is defined as a special interest group’s effectiveness at using its resources to get its favored
candidates elected. In contrast, legislative influence is defined as a special interest group’s
effectiveness at using its resources to achieve legislative outcomes that are in line with its policy
preferences. In the case of the NRA, “achieving legislative outcomes” often includes preventing
the proposal of a bill in the first place. If a particular gun control bill is never proposed, it will
never be enacted. Therefore, a negative correlation between NRA activity and the proposal of
gun control bills would serve as evidence of a legislative outcome favorable to the NRA.
As explained in Chapters 2 and 3, there are many studies on the effect of money in
politics. However, nearly all of these studies examine how money influences the outcomes of
elections. A number of studies examine how special interest groups influence the legislative
process, but nearly all of these studies analyze the impact of special interest group lobbying on
legislators’ voting patterns. Very little research has been conducted examining the influence of
special interest groups on the proposal of legislation, and no research has yet been conducted
examining the influence of the NRA on the proposal of gun control legislation in Congress. This
study seeks to bridge this gap in the literature.
The theory underpinning this study of the NRA is that through lobbying activities that
rely on various modes of influence, the NRA inspires electoral fear among members of
Congress. These modes of influence include spending on campaign contributions, lobbying, and
50
advertising. The degree of electoral fear felt by legislators as a result of NRA lobbying is a key
factor in determining the number of gun control bills that are proposed in Congress.
It is important to discuss the concept of “electoral fear” in relation to the theory advanced
above. I define electoral fear as legislators’ fear of losing support among constituents as well as
losing the next election as a result of not acting in accordance with the wishes of interest groups.
Much research into special interest group power suggests that electoral fear is prevalent among
members of Congress and influences legislative decision-making in many ways.
For instance, “negative lobbying” is a term coined by Amy McKay to describe interest
group efforts to lobby against a proposal, as opposed to positive lobbying, which is lobbying for
a proposal.111 Negative lobbying is the mechanism that is most directly responsible for generating
“electoral fear.” The NRA is engaged almost solely in negative lobbying because they
consistently seek the defeat of legislation, rather than the proposal of new legislation. McKay
argues that negative lobbying tells lawmakers that serious consequences may occur if they decide
to support a particular proposal. These consequences include defeat in the next election, having
to appear at a congressional hearing to explain why a bad decision was made, or loss of majority
party status.112 Furthermore, the mechanisms that interest groups such as the NRA use to conduct
negative lobbying send powerful messages to legislators. Loomis et al. (2011) argue that
negative lobbying at the grassroots level works through a process called “signaling.” If an
interest group can generate phone calls, mail, or emails to a congressional office, they effectively
111
Amy McKay, The Power of Negative Lobbying, cited in Allan J. Cigler, Burdett A. Loomis,
and Anthony J. Nownes, Interest Group Politics, Ninth edition (Thousand Oaks, California :
London: CQ Press, 2015). Pg. 329
112
Amy McKay, The Power of Negative Lobbying, cited in Cigler, Loomis, and Nownes. Pg. 329
51
signal a legislator that attentive citizens in her state or district hold views consistent with the
group's views.113
Effective messaging campaigns that generate large volumes of opposition to proposed
legislation are especially powerful because lawmakers tend to be very risk-averse in their
decision-making.114 Elections provide voters with a means to induce lawmakers to be responsive
to voters’ wishes or to punish lawmakers for failing to respond, and because of the mechanism of
elections, lawmakers tend to be risk-averse.115 This is especially true among vulnerable
lawmakers in swing districts who often exhibit disproportionate aversion to supporting a
proposal that generates much opposition, even if it also maintains a good deal of support.116
Nownes (2013) argues that although government decision-makers do not always respond
to citizen pressure, they at least consider ordinary citizens’ opinions when they make decisions –
mostly because they know their jobs may depend upon it.117 Lawmakers’ widespread belief in the
importance of considering the opinions of their constituents supports the notion of electoral fear.
The possibility of losing the next election is at the forefront of every lawmaker’s mind, and
therefore, elections are the mechanism on which negative lobbying campaigns rely.
Specifically, lawmakers are fearful of significant mobilization against their campaign in
elections. Effective negative messaging campaigns by special interest groups illustrate to
lawmakers that a substantial number of constituents oppose a particular issue. This is why some
interest groups engage in this kind of lobbying in the first place – to convince government
113
Burdett A. Loomis, Peter L. Francia, and Dara Z. Strolovitch, eds., Guide to Interest Groups
and Lobbying in the United States (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2011). Pg. 15
114
Anthony J. Nownes, Interest Groups in American Politics: Pressure and Power, 2 edition
(Routledge, 2013). Pg. 238
115
Nownes. Pg. 170
116
Amy McKay, The Power of Negative Lobbying, cited in Cigler, Loomis, and Nownes, Interest
Group Politics. Pg. 339
117
Nownes, Interest Groups in American Politics. Pg. 170
52
decision-makers that the public is on the side of the interest group, and to oppose the interest
group would mean near-certain electoral consequences.118 This inspires electoral fear in
legislators; they fear that constituents mobilizing against a piece of legislation will also mobilize
to vote them out of office in the next election if the legislator acts against the will of his
constituents. Therefore, legislators pay attention to these negative lobbying campaigns out of
electoral fear.
This holds true in the relationship between lawmakers and the NRA. Because many
lawmakers are afraid that the NRA will negatively influence their electoral prospects in
upcoming elections if the lawmakers propose gun control bills, they tend to propose less
legislation as a result. I argue that when fewer bills are proposed, it could signal an unwillingness
to legislate on a particular issue, and this unwillingness is premised on electoral fear.
The basic theory that the NRA discourages policymakers from proposing legislation in
the first place has been advocated by scholars studying the organization. For instance, Lacombe
(2019) argues that “mobilization has altered the policy agenda by discouraging policymakers
from proposing new gun control laws in the first place. The NRA’s reputation for mass
mobilization precedes it, so when it threatens to turn gun owners loose on elected officials, those
officials – especially if they have experienced the wrath of the NRA in the past – take it very
seriously.”119 Lacombe argues that the NRA’s threats to mobilize its members against particular
pieces of proposed legislation or against particular legislators during elections is sufficient to
discourage elected officials from proposing gun-related legislation at all.
The threat of NRA mobilization has been studied and advanced by other scholars and
experts on the NRA as well. For instance, Sheila Krumholz, the executive director of the Center
118
Nownes. Pg. 238
119
Lacombe, Gunning for the Masses: How the NRA Builds Political Power. Pgs. 30-31
53
for Responsive Politics, argues that “(the NRA’s) most precious resource is perhaps the passion
and political engagement of its members and its fans.”120 Gun policy expert and UCLA School of
Law professor Adam Winkler supports this argument, noting that “the NRA has money that it
uses to help its favored candidates get elected. But the real source of its power, I believe, comes
from voters.”121 Lacombe (2019) further supports this assertion about the strength of the NRA’s
base: “Democrats felt that relatively few votes could be gained from single-issue anti-gun voters,
but that many more could be lost from single-issue pro-gun voters. And, even if their support for
gun control did not lose them many votes…they may have feared that making gun control salient
would enable Republicans to more easily rally their base.”122
It is well-founded among scholars studying the NRA and the gun control debate that the
underlying source of NRA power is its ability to mobilize its members into action. This
mobilization is usually to oppose legislation or to show up at the ballot boxes. This well-founded
assertion supports the notion of “electoral fear.” Legislators fear the wrath of the NRA and its
membership, and this fear influences much of their political behavior, including the proposal of
legislation.
It is also important to consider the second part of the theory advanced in this section in
greater detail, which is the notion that the proposal of bills in Congress can be affected by
external modes of influence, such as campaign contributions, lobbying spending, advertising, or
the threat of membership mobilization. The process of choosing which issues to pursue through
proposing legislation is commonly referred to as “agenda setting.”123 Research into agenda
setting in Congress has conclusively found that there are a wide variety of factors influencing
120
Lipton and Burns, “The True Source of the N.R.A.’s Clout.”
121
Rushe, “Why Is the National Rifle Association so Powerful?”
122
123
Richard A. Smith, “Interest Group Influence in the U. S. Congress,” Legislative Studies
Quarterly 20, no. 1 (1995): 89–139, https://doi.org/10.2307/440151. Pg. 110
54
whether legislation is proposed. For instance, as noted in Chapter 2, Davidson et al. (2018) argue
that “members get ideas for bills from numerous sources, such as the executive branch, interest
groups, scholars, state and local officials, constituents, the media, and their staff.”124 All of these
sources are potential determinants of whether particular legislation is proposed in Congress.
Further, in terms of interest group power specifically, Kingdon (1984) notes that “a
substantial portion of interest group effort is devoted to negative, blocking activities…their
ability to mobilize their members and sympathetic others is a resource used to influence agenda
setting.”125 In the case of the NRA, “blocking activities” include the threat of mobilizing their
membership against a particular piece of legislation that is proposed. There is a wide variety of
sources from which ideas and motivations for bills originate, and it is nearly impossible to
pinpoint all of the specific sources influencing the proposal or lack of proposal of certain bills.
However, it is well-founded that certain sources have greater influence than others, and one
source that has maintained substantial influence on agenda setting in Congress over time is
special interest group lobbying.
In sum, the theory underpinning this project is that the NRA inspires electoral fear in
legislators using its various modes of influence, and this electoral fear can influence how many
gun control bills are proposed in Congress. This theory will first be tested quantitatively in
Chapter 5. The results of this quantitative analysis will then be assessed in the context of three
notable cases in Chapter 6: the mass shootings at Columbine High School in 1999, Virginia Tech
University in 2007, and Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
Hypotheses and Key Variables

124
125
John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984);
cited in Smith, “Interest Group Influence in the U. S. Congress.”
55
My hypothesis for this study is that the NRA’s various modes of influence do indeed have
a significant effect on the number of pro-gun and anti-gun bills that are proposed. More
specifically, when the NRA is very active within its modes of influence, fewer anti-gun bills are
introduced and more pro-gun bills are introduced. Conversely, when the NRA is less active
within its modes of influence, more anti-gun bills and fewer pro-gun bills are introduced.
Along with this hypothesis, there are two other possible hypotheses to consider. One
possibility is a null hypothesis, which suggests that no relationship exists between the NRA’s
modes of influence and the number of gun control bills proposed in Congress each year. The
other possibility is a reactionary hypothesis. This hypothesis suggests that the NRA increases its
activity in response to an external factor that causes an increase in anti-gun bills and a decrease
in pro-gun bills. This reactionary hypothesis accounts for the possibility that an external factor
causes fluctuations in bill proposals and that the NRA’s increased activity is a reaction to this
external factor. An example of an external factor in the reactionary hypothesis would be a mass
shooting; it could be reasonably expected that a mass shooting might cause an increase in
anti-gun bills and a decrease in pro-gun bills and that the NRA would mobilize in response.
For clarity, these three hypotheses are summarized in Table 1. These will be tested in the
third quantitative test in Chapter 5, which is regression analysis.
Hypothesis 1 When the NRA is very active within its modes of influence, fewer anti-gun
(original) bills are introduced and more pro-gun bills are introduced.
Hypothesis 2 There is no relationship between the NRA’s modes of influence and the
(null) number of gun control bills proposed in Congress each year.
Hypothesis 3 When the NRA is very active within its modes of influence, it is in response
(reactionary) to an external factor that affects changes in the levels of pro- and anti-gun bill
proposals.
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The dependent variable in the regression analysis will be the number of pro-gun and
anti-gun bills proposed in each Congress between the 102nd Congress (1991-1992) and the 115th
Congress (2017-2018).
There are three independent variables in this regression analysis. These are three of the
most visible NRA modes of influence, which provide a starting point for examining the complex
nature of the NRA’s power. The first variable is NRA campaign contributions, which is a
measure of how much money the NRA has donated to federal campaigns in every election cycle
between 1990 and 2018. The second independent variable is NRA lobbying expenditures, which
is the total amount of money spent by the NRA on lobbying expenses each year. The third
independent variable is NRA advertising expenditures, both in the aggregate on a yearly basis
and for online advertising specifically on a monthly basis. The next subsection will provide a
complete overview of the research design and data collection process.
Research Design
The method of analysis for this project resides in the mixed-method mode, drawing from
both the quantitative-correlative and the qualitative-descriptive research cultures. The first step in
this analysis will be conducting quantitative tests to assess the relationship between gun-related
bill proposals in Congress and the three different NRA modes of influence discussed above. The
assessments made based on the initial quantitative results will guide the second step of this
analysis, which includes three case studies that will examine these assessments in greater detail.
This approach closely mirrors Evan Lieberman’s “nested analysis” method of mixed-method
research.
57
By combining quantitative and qualitative tests, this study hopes to generate a more
robust causal inference about the connection between NRA modes of influence and the proposal
of gun-related bills in Congress than either regression analysis or case studies could produce
alone. Seawright (2016) notes that with integrative, mixed-method research designs, one method
will produce a key inference, and the other method is then used to design, test, refine, or bolster
the analysis producing that inference.126 Further, Seawright argues that regression can never be a
stand-alone basis for causal inference.127 In this study, the quantitative tests are used to produce
the initial inference about the relationship between bill proposals in Congress and the three
independent variables outlined above. Once this inference has been generated by the quantitative
tests, the qualitative case studies will be used to test and refine it.
As stated above, this methodology is aligned with Lieberman’s “nested analysis” research
design, which combines Large N data analysis and Small N case study analysis in a
complementary fashion. Large N Analysis (LNA) is defined as a mode of analysis in which the
primary causal inferences are derived from statistical analyses; this ultimately leads to
quantitative estimates of the robustness of a theoretical model.128 In other words, LNA involves
conducting statistical analyses to generate an inference about the strength of a proposed theory.
Nested analysis formally begins with these preliminary LNA quantitative tests, which can be
understood as a hypothesis-testing analysis.129 In the context of this study, regression analysis of
the dependent variable on the three independent variables comprises this Large-N analysis and
will generate an inference about the relationship between these variables.

126
Jason Seawright, Multi-Method Social Science: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Tools
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016). Pg. 8
127
Seawright. Pg. 45
128
Evan S. Lieberman, “Nested Analysis as a Mixed-Method Strategy for Comparative
Research,” American Political Science Review 99, no. 3 (August 2005): 435–52,
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055405051762. Pg. 436
129
Lieberman. Pg. 438
58
The quantitative analysis in this project will involve three tests: (1) equality of
proportions and t-tests for bill proposals and campaign contributions, (2) analysis of bill proposal
totals over time, and (3) linear regressions of the dependent variable (number of pro- and
anti-gun bills proposed in Congress each year) on the three independent variables (campaign
contributions, lobbying spending, advertising spending). It is important to acknowledge that
correlation of any of these variables does not prove their causality. If a relationship between any
of the independent variables and dependent variable is found, that does not necessarily imply that
the NRA activity in their modes of influence has a direct effect on the proposal of legislation in
Congress. Indeed, both variables could be influenced by a third confounding variable, or multiple
confounding variables.
Once these tests have generated results and initial inferences can been made, the results
will help guide case selection in the Small N qualitative analysis. Lieberman defines Small N
Analysis (SNA) as a mode of analysis in which “causal inferences are derived from qualitative
comparisons of cases and/or process tracing of causal chains within cases across time.”130 In
other words, SNA involves using the comparison of case studies to examine the causal inference
generated by the quantitative tests in the LNA in greater detail. Examining the initial causal
inference in the context of comparative case studies allows for a more comprehensive
examination of the relationship between NRA modes of influence and bill proposals. Ultimately,
the evidence generated by the case studies leads to either a strengthening or a revision of the
initial causal inference.
Furthermore, Lieberman discusses that SNA is used for one of two distinct purposes in a
nested analysis research design. The first is for “model testing.” Lieberman writes, “in the case
of (Model Testing SNA), the combination of theory and statistical results compels us to gather
130
Lieberman. Pg. 438
59
evidence – in the form of primary and secondary printed sources, interviews, surveys, and the
other types of materials typically consulted for the development of an in-depth case analysis –
that allows us to write a detailed narrative from the vantage-point of the preferred model.”131 If
the quantitative tests in this study produce robust statistical results, then the qualitative case
studies will simply provide further tests for the theory. However, if the quantitative tests provide
ambiguous or uncertain results, it will be necessary to rely on the second distinct purpose of
SNA, which Lieberman describes as “model building.”
“Model building” will occur if the initial causal inference generated by the quantitative
tests is weak and further evidence is needed to bolster causal claims. Lieberman writes that in
this instance, the nested analysis approach demands a more wide-ranging and inductive
“Model-Building SNA.” Scholars may use the LNA portion of the nested analysis approach
simply to point out the limits of existing data and theory, motivating a more inductive search for
explanations within a single case or small set of cases in the SNA.132 The model building
approach of SNA is especially useful because it allows for the refinement of a study’s initial
theory if that theory no longer fits the quantitative results generated in the LNA. In the context of
this study, the choice between model testing and model building will be determined after the
quantitative results and initial causal inferences have been generated.
Data Collection
The dependent variable in this project is the number of gun-related bills proposed from
the beginning of the 102nd through the end of the 115th Congresses. This is represented by an
original dataset comprised of all gun-related bills proposed in these 14 Congresses. To generate
131
Lieberman. Pg. 442
132
Lieberman. Pg. 443
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this dataset, I used the bill search engine on Congress.gov, which maintains an electronic
database of every bill proposed in every Congress from the 93rd Congress through the present.
I used a wide variety of gun-related search terms while conducting searches, which were:
"Firearms" or "Firearm" or "second amendment" or "Second Amendment" or "gun" or "guns" or
"assault weapons" or "shotgun" or "rifle" or "handgun" or "shooting.” I argue that these search
terms encompass the vast majority, if not all, of the gun legislation proposed in Congress
between the 102nd and 115th Congresses. It is indeed possible that this dataset does not include
every single gun-related bill proposed, but the number of excluded bills would be very small.
The bill search engine found at Congress.gov is displayed in Figure 1 below for reference.
The initial search using these terms returned a total of 2,907 bills, which included bills,
resolutions, and amendments. After generating this search, I developed a coding system for
analyzing the bills. This system included coding bills according to four codes. The first is
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“pro-gun,” which represents bills that broaden gun ownership in any way. The second is
“anti-gun,” which represents bills that tighten restrictions on gun ownership in any way. The
third is “wash,” which represents bills that have both a pro-gun and an anti-gun provision and are
thus impossible to categorize for the purposes of this analysis. The fourth is “not applicable,”
which represents extraneous bills generated by the search engine that have nothing to do with
gun regulations.
I then read through each bill in the dataset and coded it as anti-gun, pro-gun, wash, or not
applicable. After completing this coding of all 2,907 bills, 2,118 bills were coded as pro-gun or
anti-gun, and the rest were removed from analysis. While undertaking this process, I developed
comprehensive definitions of pro-gun and anti-gun bills and gun-related measures that are not
applicable to this analysis. Pro-gun bill definitions are listed in Table 2, anti-gun bill definitions
are listed in Table 3, and gun-related but not applicable definitions are listed in Table 4.
Pro-Gun Bill Definitions

A pro-gun bill is defined as any bill that:
(a): Seeks to protect the rights of particular groups of individuals to bear arms. Examples of groups of
individuals include veterans, people with prior domestic violence convictions, prior drug convictions,
and felons.
(b): Seeks to remove existing restrictions from or prevent future restrictions on sales or possession of
firearm accessories.
(c): Seeks to remove existing restrictions from or prevent future restrictions on sales or possession of
certain kinds of ammunition.
(d): Seeks to broaden the rights of particular individuals or groups of individuals to bear arms. An
example would be the Sergeant at Arms of Congress being allowed to carry a firearm in Congressional
meeting rooms.
(e): Seeks to expand the right to bear arms in new places that previously prohibited firearms.
(f): Seeks to protect people’s ability to shoot guns recreationally, or to expand access to recreational
shooting opportunities. An example would be the allocation of funds or land for shooting ranges on
federal land.
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(g): Seeks to exempt certain guns, gun accessories, or ammunition from classification or regulation by
federal agencies.
(h): Seeks to prohibit the government from collecting data on gun sales or individuals who own guns.
(i): Seeks to expand the ability of certain federal agents or local police officers to carry arms, or to
expand the types of places law enforcement is allowed to carry weapons.
(j): Eases criminal penalties for firearms offenses.
(k): Expands the rights of military service members to carry personal firearms in a non-official
capacity. An example would be military service members being allowed to carry their personal
firearms when they leave their base.
(l): Expands the ability of people with concealed carry permits to carry firearms in states other than the
one in which they have a permit.
(m): Includes specific provisions that the funds cannot be used to promote gun control. This is most
commonly found as a provision within general appropriations bills.
Anti-Gun Bill Definitions

An anti-gun bill is defined as any bill that:
(a): Seeks to restrict certain individuals or groups of individuals from buying or possessing firearms or
ammunition on the basis of criminal history, immigration status, or mental health history.
(b): Seeks to ban particular classes or models of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition.
(c): Seeks to impose age restrictions on purchasing firearms.
(d): Strengthens background check requirements, or provides additional requirements to purchase a
firearm.
(e): Mandates gun safety and storage procedures on penalty of fine or revocation of FOID card.
(f): Seeks to tighten restrictions on gun dealers. This could include mandated background checks,
mandated reporting of background checks to the federal government, prohibitions on selling to people
of a certain age, prohibitions on selling to people with certain criminal histories, or restrictions on
transferring inventory in a “fire sale” after a bankruptcy.
(g): Approves funds for or mandates a report on research into gun violence.
(h): Creates gun buyback programs. These can be mandatory or voluntary.
(i): Is aimed at reducing the overall gun inventory in the U.S.
(j): Restricts the ability of police or law enforcement to use certain types of weapons, or to carry
weapons in particular places.
(k): Provides grant money to the ATF to specifically combat illegal domestic gun trafficking.
(l): Strengthens criminal penalties for firearms offenses.
(m): Gives law enforcement authority to make more arrests for firearms violations.
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(n): Prohibits the shooting of animals.

(o): Authorizes individuals injured by gun violence to bring civil liability suit in federal court.
(p): Seeks to prevent “Gun Kingpins,” which are individuals who import or sell multiple firearms in a
single transaction.
(q): Creates a federal gun registry of all guns, or certain sub-types of weapons.
Gun-Related Bill Provisions Not Coded

Gun-related bills that are not coded include bills that:
(a): Expand or restrict military access to guns for use in official duty.
(b): Include provisions appropriating money to fight gun violence as part of appropriations bills. This is
far too broad because of the wide disagreement in definitions of “fighting gun violence” – some might
argue for imposing further restrictions on guns, others argue for loosening restrictions on guns or
providing more guns to the public.
(c): Provide for consideration of certain bills – these are procedural and do not affect gun ownership
directly. These are House or Senate Rules Committee bills.
(d): Appropriate general funds for the ATF: these are too broad to be considered specifically anti-gun
because the ATF investigates more than just firearms.
For the three independent variable datasets, I drew data from four sources. Data for
campaign contributions used in this study come from the Federal Election Commission (FEC)
website.133 The FEC provides comprehensive data on campaign contributions from Political
133
“FEC - Browse Disbursements for National Rifle Association of America Political Victory
Fund,” FEC.gov, accessed February 20, 2020, https://www.fec.gov/data/disbursements/.
64
Action Committees (PAC’s). The NRA funnels campaign contributions through its official PAC,
which is called the National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF). The FEC has
tracked data on NRA-PVF contributions from the 2003-2004 election cycle through the present,
and the NRA campaign contribution data used in this project is from 2003-2018.
Data for lobbying expenditures used in this study come from Open Secrets, which is a
project of the Center for Responsive Politics.134 Open Secrets tracks money in politics, including
lobbying expenditures by special interest groups, and how that money influences elections and
policy outcomes. The NRA lobbying expenditure data used in this study is from 1998-2018.
Data for advertising expenditures come from two sources. The first source is ProPublica,
which is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces various forms of investigative
journalism. The NRA is a nonprofit organization, and all nonprofit organizations must file
publicly available IRS Form 990 tax forms which are intended to provide the public with
information about nonprofit organization operating expenses. ProPublica has collected the
NRA’s IRA 990 forms for the years 2003-2017, 135 and total advertising and promotion
expenditures are included in these forms. I have extracted the NRA’s advertising expenditures
from these 990 forms for each year between 2003 and 2017.
The other source of NRA advertising expenditure data comes from Pathmatics, a
California-based company that provides a marketing intelligence platform. Using this platform,
Pathmatics tracks online advertising spending across Facebook, YouTube, display, native,
mobile, video and Twitter.136 This dataset covers NRA expenditures across these various online
134
“National Rifle Assn Lobbying Profile • OpenSecrets.”
135
Mike Tigas, Sisi Wei, Ken Schwencke, Brandon Roberts, Alec Glassford, “National Rifle
Association Of America - Nonprofit Explorer,” ProPublica, accessed February 20, 2020,
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/530116130.
136
Pathmatics Inc, “Pathmatics | Marketing Intelligence for Digital Advertisers,” accessed
February 20, 2020, https://www.pathmatics.com.
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platforms from July 2012 through the present. This study will use data on NRA ad spending
from July 2012 through December 2018.
Once the quantitative tests have been conducted as part of the Large-N analysis (LNA),
this study will move into the qualitative case studies, or the Small-N analysis (SNA) component
of this study. The SNA will analyze the quantitative results in accordance with three different
case studies, which are analyses of the respective NRA and legislative responses to three
publicly salient mass shooting episodes: Columbine in 1999, Virginia Tech in 2007, and Sandy
Hook in 2012. While all occurring at schools, these three cases occurred in three very different
circumstances and generated different responses from the NRA and Congress.
In addition to differing responses from the NRA and Congress, these cases were also
chosen along two dimensions: (1) the amount of media coverage they received and (2) the
measured public attention given to each event. The media coverage dimension serves as an
indicator for a period of potential policy change. Policymakers tend to infer the public’s stand on
issues from the media agenda, and sudden fluctuations in media attention often serve as a cue for
action for policymakers.137 The shootings at Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook all
received immense amounts of media coverage. This makes the aftermath of each shooting ripe
for policy change because many more Americans are thinking about the issue of gun violence
and gun control. Chapter 6 provides more specific statistics about media coverage of each event.
The second dimension, measured public attention to each event, serves as a
complementary indicator for a period of potential policy change. Unresponsiveness of
policymakers to issues that climb the media agenda may compromise their current position of
137
Itzhak Yanovitzky, “Effects of News Coverage on Policy Attention and Actions: A Closer
Look Into the Media-Policy Connection,” Communication Research 29, no. 4 (August 2002):
422–51, https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650202029004003. Pgs. 422-425
66
power in government.138 Therefore, periods of time in which the public is attentive to a particular
issue provide interesting circumstances in which to study legislative behavior.
These three cases are worthwhile to study because they were each followed by a unique
NRA and Congressional response and were publicly salient thanks to the media coverage of each
event. The quantitative results will offer guidance concerning the use of the case studies as
model testing or model building forms of analysis, which is the key next step in Lieberman’s
nested analysis methodology discussed earlier in this chapter. Regardless of the strength of the
inferences drawn from the quantitative tests, further exploration of the quantitative results in the
context of these three case studies will provide additional validity to the quantitative results as
well as a potential opportunity for revision of the initial causal inference. The three case studies
will be discussed in much more detail in Chapter 6 following the quantitative tests in Chapter 5.
138
Yanovitzky. Pg. 424
67
Chapter 5
Quantitative Results
This chapter presents the quantitative results in this study. The results are presented in four
sub-sections: (1) presentation of an equality of proportions test for pro- and anti-gun bill
proposals and a t-test for campaign contributions, (2) examination of pro- and anti-gun bill
proposals between 1991 and 2018, (3) examination of bill proposals in the time periods
surrounding mass shootings at Columbine (1999), Virginia Tech (2007), and Sandy Hook (2012),
and (4) regression analysis of NRA campaign contributions, lobbying spending, and advertising
spending on bill proposals in Congress. Each test and its results will be explained in turn.
Equality of Proportions and T-Tests
Figure 2 presents the first quantitative test conducted in this study, which is an equality of
proportions test. This test examines whether the proportion of pro-gun bill proposals is equal to
the proportion of anti-gun bill proposals for each year in the dataset. This test serves as a method
of identifying years in which one type of bill proposal has an abnormally large advantage over
the other. In other words, this test identifies any year in which there is an unusually large or small
proportion of pro-gun bills proposed relative to the average number of pro-gun bills proposed,
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and vice versa for anti-gun bill proposals. Identifying years in which there is an unusually active
or dormant amount of legislative activity is useful because it illustrates patterns in legislative
behavior, which can be used to draw inferences about why legislators choose to be more or less
aggressive in proposing legislation at various periods in time.

69
The p-values in this test are generated by a Bonferroni correction, which is a statistical
correction used when conducting analysis of multiple independent variables on the same
dependent variable to avoid generating false positives. As a result of this correction, the p-values
at which statistical significance is considered are .002 and .003. The years that are highlighted in
bright colors (1991, for example) represent years in which the proposal of pro-gun bills is lower
than average and has a statistically significant p value that is less than .002. The years that are
highlighted in fainter colors (1995, for example) represent years in which the proposal of
pro-gun bills is lower than average and has a statistically significant p value that is less than .003.
The years presented in black and white are years in which the proposals of pro- and anti-gun bills
were not statistically significant deviations from the average proportion of pro- and anti-gun bill
proposals. Put differently, the years highlighted either in bright or faint colors represent years in
which a greater-than-average proportion of anti-gun bills and a smaller-than-average proportion
of pro-gun bills were proposed. The years displayed in black and white represent years in which
a relatively average proportion of anti- and pro-gun bills were proposed.
These results illustrate three distinct eras over the time period of 1990-2018. The first is
1991-2001, in which there was a larger-than-average proportion of anti-gun bills and a
smaller-than-average proportion of pro-gun bills proposed for each year except 1992. This
illustrates a pattern of aggressive and sustained anti-gun legislative activity during this decade.
The second era is 2002-2012. Each year in this era maintained relatively average proportions of
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anti- and pro-gun bill proposals, which illustrates a weaker anti-gun legislative effort compared
to the aggressive anti-gun legislative efforts of the 1990s.
Finally, the third era is 2013-2018, which provides evidence of mixed legislative action
on gun control. 2013 was the year following the Sandy Hook shooting, and there was a
larger-than-average proportion of anti-gun bills proposed that year. The years 2014-2017
experienced average levels of bill proposals, but there was a larger-than-average proportion of
bill proposals in 2018. The year 2018 marked a critical moment in the debate over gun control in
the United States because high-profile mass shootings in Las Vegas, Nevada and Sutherland
Springs, Texas had taken place in late 2017, and the shooting in Parkland, Florida took place in
February 2018. This wave of gruesome mass shooting violence is one potential explanation for
the spike in anti-gun legislative activity during 2018. The three distinct periods of legislative
activity concerning gun control in the years 1991-2018 will be further assessed in the next
sub-section, which examines bill proposals surrounding mass shootings in each of the three
periods.
Table 5 presents a t-test of NRA campaign contributions between the years 2003 and
2018. A t-test is a statistical method of analysis that tests the mean of a single group against an
overall mean. This test determines if the mean of the group being tested deviates from the overall
mean. In this study, the t-test is testing the mean level of NRA campaign contributions for each
year between 2003 and 2018 against the overall mean level of NRA contributions for the entire
dataset. As stated in Chapter 4, data on NRA campaign contributions is only available beginning
in 2003. The results in Table 5 present the mean level of NRA contributions for each year and
whether the yearly mean is a statistically significant deviation from the overall mean between
2003 and 2018.

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If a mean level of contribution is a statistically significant deviation from the mean, this
could be a higher-than-average mean, meaning that an unusually large amount of money was
spent on campaign contributions, or a lower-than-average mean, meaning that an unusually small
amount of money was spent on campaign contributions. The dark gold shading shows years in
which the mean was either higher or lower at a statistically significant p value that is less than
.002. The light gold shading shows years in which the mean was either higher or lower at a
statistically significant p value that is less than .003. For each year that has a statistically
significant p-value, whether the value is higher than average or lower than average is indicated.
The years with no shading present mean contribution levels that were average. As in the equality
of proportions test, a Bonferroni correction is used to determine the significant p-values of .002
and .003.
Table 5 presents the equality of proportions results presented in Figure 2 and the results
of the t-test of campaign contributions between 2003 and 2018 to assess any relationship
between deviations from average campaign contributions and deviations from average pro- or
anti-gun bill proposals.
Year Proportion of all gun Average Campaign

bills that are pro-gun Contributions
2003 0.40 $1,259 (lower)
2004 0.41 $1,847
2005 0.35 $1,463 (lower)
2006 0.64 $2,146
2007 0.33 $1,428 (lower)
2008 0.56 $1,992
2009 0.54 $1,397 (lower)
2010 0.56 $2,244 (higher)
2011 0.60 $1,329 (lower)
2012 0.61 $1,938
2013 0.36 $1,452 (lower)
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2014 0.47 $1,961

2015 0.44 $1,764
2016 0.40 $1,909
2017 0.41 $1,516
2018 0.19 $1,723
Blue shading = p < .002; light blue = p < .003
Gold shading = p < .002; light gold = p < .003
For the average campaign contribution t-test, the statistically significant results do not
display a clear pattern. The years in which the average NRA campaign contribution is a
significant deviation from the mean contribution level alternates from 2003 through 2008. The
years 2009-2011 are all statistically significant, as well as the year 2013. The years 2014-2018
indicate average levels of NRA campaign contributions. It is difficult to discern a clear pattern
from these results, as they are erratic and with the exception of 2013, do not correspond with
significant deviations in the equality of proportions test for bill proposals. The erratic pattern of
t-test results suggests that there is no clear relationship between deviations in campaign
73
contributions and gun-related bill proposals. This pattern does not appear to provide evidence
that a significant increase or decrease in the amount of campaign contributions relates to a
significant increase or decrease in the proportion of pro- or anti-gun bill proposals in a
meaningful way.
In sum, the equality of proportions test of bill proposals and t-test of NRA campaign
contributions provide useful insights. For the equality of proportions test, the results illustrate
that on average, more anti-gun legislation is proposed than pro-gun legislation each year.
Furthermore, the test provides evidence that between 1991 and 2018, legislative activity on gun
control went through three distinct phases: high levels of anti-gun activity in the 1990s, average
levels of gun-related legislative activity in the 2000s, and mixed results in the period between
2013 and 2018. These two results will be examined further throughout this chapter. For the t-test,
the results suggest that it is likely that NRA campaign contributions are not meaningfully related
to pro- or anti-gun bill proposals. This provides evidence to support the notion that the NRA
does not maintain a high degree of legislative influence in terms of its campaign contributions.
This result will also be examined further throughout this chapter.
Analysis of Bill Proposals, 1990-2018
This subsection examines trends in the proposal of pro-gun and anti-gun legislation over
the timespan 1990-2018 through graphical analysis. It is useful to consider potential trends in the
proposal of legislation because it provides a helpful starting point for the examination of the
specific time periods surrounding mass shootings as well as the regression analysis found later in
this chapter.
To begin, the results of the equality of proportions test from earlier in this chapter provide
evidence that on average, more anti-gun than pro-gun legislation was proposed in the years
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between 1990 and 2018. Figure 3 illustrates pro-gun bill proposals in Congress over this time
period. The main conclusion that can be drawn is that there is a relatively consistent average
level of bill proposals over this time span, with no noticeably large spikes in the graph. Over the
entire time period in Figure 3, there are no months in which bill proposals reach 15 bills, only
four months in which more than 10 bills were proposed, and a large majority of months in which
5 or fewer pro-gun bills were proposed.
In isolation, it is difficult to draw substantive conclusions from Figure 3 alone. However,
the results of Figure 4 provide evidence of a higher average of anti-gun bill proposals as well as a
greater number of spikes in anti-gun bill proposals when pro-gun and anti-gun bill proposals are
compared. The contrast between Figure 3 and Figure 4 confirms the results presented in the
equality of proportions test: on average, more anti-gun legislation is proposed than pro-gun
legislation in Congress. These results are especially clear in Figure 5, which combines the graphs
of pro-gun and anti-gun bill proposals.

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Furthermore, Figure 4 illustrates that there are instances throughout this time period in
which legislators appear to be very aggressive in proposing anti-gun bills over short time
periods. These instances include the time periods 1993-95, 1996-98, 1999-2000, 2013-14, and
2017-18. These spikes in the graph merit consideration: what causes them? Why are legislators
suddenly inclined to propose a great deal of legislation in certain periods, but not in others?
One potential explanation for why legislators might decide to propose great quantities of
anti-gun legislation in short periods are that there is an instance of unified government between
both chambers of Congress and the President. Figure 6 identifies four instances of unified
government over the time period 1990-2018: Democratic in 1993-95, Republican in 2003-07,
Democratic in 2009-11, and Republican in 2017-19.

76
The relationship between unified government and anti-gun bill proposals is ultimately
inconclusive. In 1993-1994, there was a unified Democratic government under President Clinton,
who supported gun control laws, and significant spikes in anti-gun bill proposals are observed.
The theoretical expectation in the context of a unified Democratic government with a president
who supports gun control would be a high rate of anti-gun bill proposal; this instance matches
the expectation. Next, there is a relatively low rate of bill proposal between 2003 and 2006 that
does not exceed 15 anti-gun bill proposals per month. This is in the context of a unified
Republican government under President George W. Bush, who was supported by the NRA and
largely opposed gun control. This also matches the theoretical expectation in these
circumstances: with a unified Republican government and a president who does not support
expansive gun control, it would be expected that legislators are less aggressive in proposing gun
control legislation because it stands a low chance of becoming law.
However, in the next instance of unified government, there is a rate of bill proposal
between 2009 and 2011 under a unified Democratic government that is even lower than the rate
observed during the unified Republican government in 2003-07. This does not match the
theoretical expectation for a unified Democratic government. One potential reason for the low
rate of anti-gun bill proposals during this period is that President Obama did not aggressively
support gun control reform in his first term. Because the president made it clear that he desired to
pursue other legislative objectives in his first term, gun control was kept largely off the agenda.
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Finally, a high, sustained rate of anti-gun bill proposals is observed during the first two
years of the Trump presidency, which had a unified Republican government and a president
supported by the NRA and largely opposed to the passage of gun control legislation. This also
does not match the theoretical expectation for a unified Republican government, which would be
that fewer anti-gun bills would be proposed during this time period. The evidence presented in
Figure 6 illustrates just the opposite: anti-gun bill proposals actually increased during the first
two years of the Trump presidency.
The conclusion to be drawn from this analysis is that bill proposals do not track closely
with instances of unified government. While this is an important conclusion, it is also necessary
to consider another important potential influence on the proposal of legislation: mass shootings.
Mass shootings tend to serve as “shock” factors for political discourse in the United
States, and have the propensity to dramatically shift public support for gun control legislation.
Therefore, analyzing the aftermaths of mass shootings could provide further information about
how such events influence the proposal of pro- and anti-gun legislation. The next sub-section
analyzes pro- and anti-gun bill proposals in three decades: the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. In
addition, it examines the time period surrounding three influential mass shootings in the United
States: Columbine in 1999, Virginia Tech in 2007, and Sandy Hook in 2012.
Decade-Level Analysis of Bill Proposals
This section evaluates fluctuations in bill proposals over time and discusses potential
explanations for these fluctuations. First, bill proposals over the span of 1991-2018 will be
presented in three segments: 1991-1999, 2000-2009, and 2010-2018. Displaying these results by
decade allows for a more in-depth examination of trends in the proposal of gun legislation.
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Second, bill proposals in the six months prior and 18 months following the Columbine, Virginia
Tech, and Sandy Hook mass shootings will be displayed graphically. By isolating bill proposals
during these time periods, it is easier to recognize trends in bill proposals that may be a direct
result of these episodes. Furthermore, analyzing bill proposals in this regard helps inform both
the regression analysis later in this chapter and the qualitative analysis in Chapter 6.
Figure 7 provides further evidence of the pattern of bill proposals in the 1990s suggested
by the equality of proportions test results earlier in this chapter. Throughout this decade, anti-gun
bill proposals exceeded pro-gun bill proposals, often spiking noticeably at certain points. The
1990s were a particularly fertile policy window for gun control advocates because of the
aggressiveness of the Clinton Administration in pursuing gun control legislative initiatives. The
two foremost examples of such initiatives were the Brady Background Checks Act, enacted in
November 1993, and the assault weapons ban, enacted in September 1994. There is a visible
spike in the graph of anti-gun bill proposals that occurs in November 1993, which is right after
the passage of the Brady bill.

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In addition, another period of aggressive anti-gun bill proposals in the 1990s came at the
end of the decade, right before and after the Columbine shooting that occurred in April 1999.
Three main spikes occur beginning in mid 1998. Two of the spikes occur before Columbine, and
the largest of the three spikes occurs directly after. Democrats had emphasized the passage of
gun control laws as a chief legislative priority throughout the Clinton Administration, and this
trend continued despite the fact that the GOP controlled both houses of Congress throughout
Clinton’s second term in office. The spike in anti-gun bill proposals following Columbine
provides evidence that legislators were responsive to public calls for increased gun control
following the shooting. Figure 8 provides an isolated focus on bill proposals in the six months
before Columbine and the year following it. In addition, two events are highlighted with vertical
red lines: the Columbine shooting in April 1999 and the passage of H.R. 1501 by the House of
Representatives.
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H.R. 1501 was the product of an intense legislative battle in the House following
Columbine, in which Democrats sought to attach amendments containing gun control provisions
to a juvenile crime bill. The Senate had successfully attached gun control provisions to a similar
version of the bill, which was quickly passed one month after Columbine. The House did not
move nearly as fast with their version of the bill. The process was delayed long enough by
NRA-allied members of Congress for the NRA to launch a major mobilization campaign against
the legislation, and the mobilization campaign worked. Though H.R. 1501 ultimately passed, it
did not contain any of the original gun control provisions and was largely seen as a win for the
NRA.
June 1999, the month of the passage of H.R. 1501, is highlighted in Figure 8 because
there is a clear, steep drop in the proposal of anti-gun legislation following this month. This
graphical analysis suggests that NRA legislative “victories” can significantly affect the number
of anti-gun bills proposed in their aftermath. In the case of Columbine’s aftermath, the passage of
H.R. 1501 without any gun control provisions was a product of NRA mobilization and seen as a
victory for the NRA, and anti-gun bill proposals decreased sharply after its passage. This will be
discussed in more detail in the Columbine case study in Chapter 6.
Between the passage of the Brady Law and Assault Weapons Ban and the surge in
anti-gun legislation proposals following Columbine, the 1990s were an extremely active period
for the gun debate. Anti-gun bill proposals significantly outstripped pro-gun bill proposals
throughout the decade, providing evidence of significant legislative initiatives to pass stronger
gun laws. However, these initiatives began to disappear following Al Gore’s loss to George W.
Bush in the 2000 election, and throughout the decade of the 2000s.
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Figure 9 provides additional support for the conclusions drawn from the equality of
proportions test conducted of bill proposals throughout the decade of the 2000s. The 2000s were
the second “era” of gun-related legislative activity identified by the proportions test. This graph
illustrates pro- and anti-gun bill proposals from 2000 through the beginning of 2010. The results
of the equality of proportions test concluded that there were no significant deviations from the
mean in pro-gun bill proposals, and this conclusion is supported by the results displayed in
Figure 9.
The decade of the 2000s was markedly different from the 1990s in terms of legislative
aggressiveness in pursuing gun-related legislation. Lacombe (2019) argues that Democrats had
82
begun to see gun control as a losing issue for their party following Al Gore’s 2000 loss. 139As a
result of this approach to the issue of gun regulations by Democrats, anti-gun bill proposals
returned to average levels, with no notable spikes in the proposal of either anti- or pro-gun
legislation throughout these ten years. Gun control was simply not a significant legislative
priority during this period.
Figure 10 highlights the six months before and the twelve months following the mass
shooting at Virginia Tech University in April 2007, which was the worst mass shooting in U.S.
history at the time. A Virginia Tech senior shot and killed 32 students and faculty before
committing suicide on April 16, 2007. Though gun control had largely been off of the legislative
agenda throughout the first term and into the second term of the George W. Bush presidency, this
shocking and horrific tragedy garnered comparable media and public attention to the Columbine
shooting.
Because of the massive extent of media coverage, many expected that this event would
force legislators to bring gun control back to the legislative agenda. The data collected on bill
proposals in this study suggests that this was not the case. Following the shooting at Virginia
Tech, there was no significant increase in anti-gun legislation in the same manner that was
experienced following Columbine.
139
83
Figure 10 identifies two points in time: the shooting that occurred in April 2007 and the
passage of a bill to strengthen the National Instant Criminal Background Check system (NICS),
which was widely viewed as the Congressional response to the shooting at Virginia Tech. This
legislation authorized the spending of federal funds to strengthen the NICS, but it did not
actually appropriate the funds – it was up to Congress to decide whether to actually spend the
funds. The passage of this legislation was seen as a victory for the NRA, whose lawyers were
instrumental in the drafting of the legislation.140 The NICS legislation actually loosened
restrictions on purchases of firearms for certain categories of people previously prohibited from
buying firearms. Because of that provision, the lack of allocation of funds toward the bill’s
intended purpose, and the unlikelihood that Congress would approve such funds in the future,
this law was a win for the NRA, despite its depiction as “anti-gun.”
Figure 10 illustrates that neither the tragedy at Virginia Tech nor the NRA legislative
victory that followed had any noticeable effect on the proposal of gun-related legislation. It is
notable that these two potentially consequential events for the gun debate had no effect on the
legislation that was proposed. This result matched the trend of a dearth of significant anti-gun
legislative activity that had been established starting in 2000, which was a trend that continued
through the end of the decade. The trend of no significant anti-gun legislative activity was
disrupted in the decade of the 2010s following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in
Newtown, Connecticut in December 2012.
Figure 11 displays the results of anti- and pro-gun bill proposals from 2010 through 2018.
In line with the trend developed throughout the previous decade, 2010 and 2011 exhibited levels
of anti- and pro-gun bill proposals that were in line with the average levels of proposals from
140
Josh Sugarmann, “Trojan Horse Gun Control: The NRA Wins on the NICS Bill,” HuffPost,
22:58 500, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trojan-horse-gun-control-_b_77754; Melzer, Gun
Crusaders.
84
previous years. This finding confirms the results of the equality of proportions test for the years
2010-2012: there was no significant deviation from the average levels of pro-gun bill proposals
during those years. In addition, the spike in anti-gun bill proposals in early 2013 confirms the
equality of proportions test results for that year.
Sandy
Hook
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elicited a massive public response because of the brutality of the murder of first graders, and this
public response drove a significant increase in legislative activity as legislators sought to respond
by proposing new anti-gun legislation.
Figure 12 displays bill proposals in the sixth months prior and two years following the
shooting at Sandy Hook. The figure highlights two key points with vertical lines: the Sandy
Hook shooting and the failure of the Manchin-Toomey bill which sought to extend background
checks to all gun sales. Responding to major public pressure and the commitment of President
Obama to enact meaningful gun control legislation, Senator Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat,
sought to draft a bill that was widely supported by the public and would not attract opposition
from the NRA. The bill ultimately did attract major opposition from the NRA, who launched a
major mobilization campaign against it throughout March and April 2013. The bill was killed in
the Senate on April 17, 2013.
Highlighting Sandy Hook and the Manchin bill failure in Figure 12 illustrates two
important points. The first is that Sandy Hook galvanized support for increasing gun regulations
in a manner that had not been seen following Virginia Tech nor since the major gun-related
legislative activity of the 1990s. The second point is that though legislators were initially very
responsive to the tragedy, the express NRA disapproval of all gun control legislation and the
NRA’s substantial mobilization campaign against the Manchin bill in the aftermath of Sandy
Hook corresponded with a major decrease in the number of anti-gun bills proposed. Indeed, as
evidenced by the proportion test of bill proposals, levels of pro- and anti-gun bill proposals
returned to average levels from 2014 through 2017.
However, though the years 2014 through 2017 did not exhibit significant deviations from
the mean level of bill proposals, there was still a noticeable increase in the raw number of
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anti-gun bills proposed during those years. Figure 11 illustrates a consistent increase in the level
of anti-gun bill proposals throughout these years, with a large spike in anti-gun bill proposals in
2018. This finding further corroborates the results of the equality of proportions test, which
provided evidence of a smaller-than-average proportion of pro-gun bill proposals in 2018. While
legislative initiatives failed in the direct aftermath of Sandy Hook, it appears that anti-gun bill
proposals began to increase slowly yet steadily between 2014 and 2018.
Regression Analysis
The final aspect of this study’s quantitative analysis is regression analysis. Linear
regressions were conducted of NRA campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures, and
advertising expenditures on the proposal of pro-gun bills in Congress for all years that data was
available. As argued throughout this study, campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures, and
advertising expenditures represent three key modes of influence of the NRA. The results of this
regression analysis are displayed in Table 6.
As described in Chapter 4, the independent variable data used in this analysis comes from
various sources and is available for different ranges of years. The dependent variable data is the
original dataset of coded pro- and anti-gun bills from every Congress between 1991 and 2018.
Campaign contribution data is sourced from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and is only
available starting in 2003. Lobbying expenditure data is sourced from Open Secrets and is
measured biannually each year from 1998 through 2007, and quarterly each year from 2008
through 2018. Online advertising expenditure data is sourced from Pathmatics, and is measured
on a monthly basis beginning in July 2012. Statistical significance was considered at a p value
less than 0.02.

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Table 6 provides evidence of three statistically significant relationships: (1) campaign
contributions and the count of pro-gun bills, (2) lobbying expenditures and the count of pro-gun
bills where lobbying data was measured biannually, and (3) lobbying expenditures and the count
of anti-gun bills where the lobbying data was measured quarterly. Each statistically significant
value is signified with an asterisk (*).
Campaign contributions
Proportion Count Pro Count Anti
Pro/Pro+Anti
ln[Contr] -.05 -.11* -.10
[.07] [.04] [.08]
Constant .37 2.26 2.51
[.72] [.47] [.83]
N 158 158 158
Lobbying Expenditures Measured Biannually
ln[Lobby $] .01 .65* .37
[.28] [.25] [.27]
Constant -.55 -6.54 -1.97
[3.94] [3.50] [3.81]
N 42 42 42
Lobbying Expenditures Measured Quarterly
ln[Lobby $] -.56 .39 1.21*
[.31] [.33] [.34]
Constant 7.44 -3.03 -13.95
[4.21] [4.45] [4.59]
N 42 42 42
Ad Spending
ln[Ad $] -.10 .08 .10
[.08] [.06] [.08]
Constant .83 .48 .66
[.94] [.67] [.99]
N 67 67 67
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This first relationship is displayed in Table 6 under the “Campaign Contributions”
heading and “Count Pro” sub heading. The coefficient estimate of -.11 on the relationship
between the log of campaign contributions per month and the monthly count of pro-gun bills
indicates that a 1% increase in campaign contributions corresponds with a .0011 decrease in the
log-odds. The incident rate ratio provides evidence that for each 1% increase in campaign
contributions, the rate (or count) of pro-gun bills per month can be expected to decrease by a
factor of .9. This finding is puzzling because it does not match the theoretical expectation
advanced in this study. The hypothesis in this study is that when the NRA is more active in their
modes of influence, fewer anti-gun bills and more pro-gun bills will be proposed. This
relationship between campaign contributions and pro-gun bills suggests the opposite: an increase
in campaign contributions is associated with a slight decrease in the proposal of pro-gun bills.
The second relationship is displayed in Table 6 under the “Lobbying Expenditures
(Measured Biannually)” heading and “Count Pro” sub heading. The coefficient estimate of .65 on
the relationship between the log of lobbying expenditures measured in half-year increments and
the monthly count of pro-gun bills indicates that a 1% increase in lobbying expenditures
corresponds with a .0065 increase in the log-odds. The incident rate ratio provides evidence that
for each 1% increase in lobbying expenditures, the rate (count) of pro-gun bills can be expected
to increase by a factor of 1.92. This finding matches the theoretical expectation advanced in this
study. An increase in NRA lobbying spending is associated with an increase in the proposal of
pro-gun bills.
Finally, the third relationship is displayed in Table 6 under the “Lobbying Expenditures
(Measured Quarterly)” heading and “Count Anti” subheading and is signified with an asterisk
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(*). The coefficient estimate of 1.21 on the relationship between the log of lobbying expenditures
measured in quarters per year and the monthly count of anti-gun bills indicates that a 1%
increase in lobbying expenditures corresponds with a .0121 increase in the log-odds. The
incident rate ratio provides evidence that for each 1% increase in lobbying expenditures, the
count of anti-gun bills can be expected to increase by a factor of 1.21. This statistical relationship
provides evidence of the opposite of the hypothesis in this study. The theoretical expectation is
that an increase in lobbying expenditures would be associated with a decrease in anti-gun bill
proposals, but this relationship provides evidence that increased lobbying spending is associated
with an increase in anti-gun bill proposals.
The evidence presented in Table 6 presents three statistically significant relationships.
Indeed, the results are mixed: there is a significant relationship between NRA lobbying
expenditures and an increase in both pro- and anti-gun bill proposals. Ultimately, this result does
not conclusively prove or disprove the hypothesis of this study advanced in Chapter 4 because
there is a relationship between an increase in NRA lobbying spending and total bill proposals,
not just anti-gun bills. The other relationship between campaign contributions and the proposal
of pro-gun bills also does not conclusively prove or disprove the hypothesis advanced in this
study because it suggests that there is a relationship between an increase in campaign
contributions and a decrease in pro-gun bills proposed.
In addition, it is important to acknowledge that these correlations do not imply a causal
relationship between the variables. One cannot infer from the correlations alone that NRA
spending directly causes an increase or decrease in the proposal of pro- or anti-gun legislation.
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Quantitative Conclusions and Implications
While the regression analysis presented in this chapter may have proven ultimately
inconclusive, that does not mean that no relationship exists at all between NRA modes of
influence and bill proposals in Congress. The NRA operates along several different faces of
power141, and the highly visible modes of campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures, and
online advertising are just three modes of influence among a wide variety of other channels of
power. The lack of a clear relationship between their most visible modes of influence and bill
proposals might suggest that the organization’s true power is simply not a result of visible,
quantifiable modes of influence, but rather the product of more complex modes of influence, such
as member mobilization itself as well as the threat of member mobilization.
The analysis of bill proposals in relation to the “shock” factors of mass shootings and
resulting NRA legislative victories in Figures 7-12 suggests that this might be the case. The
aftermath of Columbine provides evidence of legislator responsiveness to public calls for gun
control, which declines precipitously following NRA mobilization efforts. The aftermath of
Sandy Hook and the subsequent failure of the Manchin bill provides further evidence of this
same phenomenon. Both of these cases will be analyzed in much greater detail in the case studies
in Chapter 6.
This quantitative study is limited in several key ways and provides several avenues for
future research. One limit is that the data is not in a time series format, which is beyond the scope
of this project. This is a shortcoming because the current analysis does not account for the ways
in which previous NRA spending could affect future bill proposals. There is potentially much to
141
Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz, “Two Faces of Power,” American Political Science
Review 56, no. 4 (December 1962): 947–52, https://doi.org/10.2307/1952796.
91
be learned from replicating the same study while using the data in a time series format. In
addition, the independent variable data was not available for all years in the coded bill dataset.
This adds another potential avenue for future research: gathering more comprehensive data on
NRA lobbying expenditures and advertising expenditures over longer time periods will
ultimately lead to more detailed analysis and the possibility of more conclusive results.
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Chapter 6
Case Studies: Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook
Theory and Methodology
This chapter presents qualitative research that evaluates the key theory advanced in this study in
three distinct case studies: the aftermaths of the 1999 Columbine shooting, the 2007 Virginia
Tech shooting, and the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting. The aftermaths of these mass shootings each
reignited public calls for new gun control legislation at the federal level. The NRA, whose
constant goal is to prevent any anti-gun legislation from becoming law, mobilized in different
ways following each shooting.
This chapter will use case studies of these three mass shootings to evaluate the theory that
when the NRA is more active, fewer bills are proposed in Congress. The quantitative findings
discussed in Chapter 5 suggest that there is no conclusive relationship between NRA spending
and pro- and anti-gun bill proposals in Congress. However, the lack of a conclusive relationship
suggests that perhaps NRA spending is not an adequate measure of their power. Using qualitative
case studies allows for the theory advanced in this study to be tested by considering additional
modes of influence that are less easily quantifiable. The findings from these case studies help to
confirm the results of the quantitative findings in Chapter 5.
The aftermath of mass shootings is the most interesting time to study the debate over gun
control policy because media coverage of these events captivates the country for weeks and
months on end. The media is a powerful vehicle that influences public discourse and opinion on
key political issues, one of them being gun control policy. As a result of intense media coverage,
the debate between increasing gun control and protecting gun rights returns to the forefront of
political discourse in the United States. Porfiri et al (2019) argue that many firearm control
93
advocates regard the aftermath of a mass shooting to be a fertile policy window: as people’s
attention is captured by these gruesome incidents, more restrictive policies might gain traction
among policymakers, and legislatures may become more amenable to change.142 Furthermore, as
Cohen (1963) suggests, while it is difficult to identify a correlation between the media and what
people think, it is easier to find a relationship between the media and what people think about.143
In the aftermath of a mass shooting, the media’s coverage of the event often forces people to
think about the gun control debate, regardless of their stance on the issue.
Most people will never directly experience a mass shooting. Therefore, the way in which
these shootings are understood is almost solely shaped by the media, and the amount of attention
that mass shootings garner is a driving force behind these public perceptions of gun violence.144
Because of this increased focus on gun violence as a result of media coverage, legislators often
feel pressure from constituents to enact legislative change in accordance with constituent
preferences. One reason that the case studies of Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook were
all chosen was the immense amount of media coverage each received from both national and
local news outlets.
Several studies into media coverage illustrate the amount of media coverage that various
mass shooting incidents received. Silva and Capellan (2019) conducted a study of New York
Times (NYT) coverage of mass shooting incidents, measured by total articles and total words
devoted to each mass shooting incident. This study analyzed articles written in the New York
Times about mass shootings between 1966 and 2016. The researchers chose the New York Times
142
Maurizio Porfiri et al., “Media Coverage and Firearm Acquisition in the Aftermath of a Mass
Shooting,” Nature Human Behaviour, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0636-0.
143
Silva and Capellan, “A Comparative Analysis of Media Coverage of Mass Public Shootings.”
Pg. 78
144
Jaclyn Schildkraut, H. Jaymi Elsass, and Kimberly Meredith, “Mass Shootings and the Media:
Why All Events Are Not Created Equal,” Journal of Crime and Justice 41, no. 3 (May 27,
2018): 223–43, https://doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2017.1284689.
94
because its coverage is regarded as a reliable indicator of issue salience and as representative of
national coverage at large.145 Therefore, it is likely that increased New York Times coverage of a
particular event leads to an increase in public attention given to that event. The results gathered
by Silva and Capellan (2019) are included in Table 7 below.
145
95
A second key reason that Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook were chosen as
case studies was the levels of measured public attention devoted to each event. Public opinion
polling conducted after Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook supports the assertion that
increased New York Times coverage of a mass shooting is correlated with increased public
attention given to the event. For instance, a Pew survey conducted in December 1999 found that
68% of Americans followed the Columbine news “very closely,” making it the most-followed
news story of 1999.146 Furthermore, Pew reported that 92% of Americans said they followed the
shootings very or fairly closely.147
Similar statistics exist for the aftermaths of Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook. Pew Research
Center found that the news story that received the greatest amount of coverage in any given week
in 2007 was the Virginia Tech shootings, with 45% of Americans tracking the news about the
shooting “very closely.”148 While 45% falls significantly below Pew’s measurement of the public
attention devoted to Columbine (68%), it was the second most closely followed news story of
2007. In addition, following Sandy Hook, Pew Research Center found that 57% of Americans
followed the Sandy Hook shooting “very closely,” making it the second most-followed news
story behind the 2012 presidential elections.149 These statistics illustrate that in the aftermath of
all three shootings, a significant proportion of the American public was intently following news
146
“Columbine Shooting Biggest News Draw of 1999,” Pew Research Center for the People and
the Press (blog), December 28, 1999,
https://www.people-press.org/1999/12/28/columbine-shooting-biggest-news-draw-of-1999/.
147
“Columbine Shooting Biggest News Draw of 1999.”
148
“Gas Prices, Disasters Top Public’s News Interests In 2007,” Pew Research Center for the
People and the Press (blog), December 19, 2007,
https://www.people-press.org/2007/12/19/gas-prices-disasters-top-publics-news-interests-in-200
7/.
149
“Election, Tragedies Dominate Top Stories of 2012,” Pew Research Center for the People and
the Press (blog), December 20, 2012,
https://www.people-press.org/2012/12/20/election-tragedies-dominate-top-stories-of-2012/.
96
coverage of the event. As a result, the national political climate was ripe for a renewal of the gun
control versus gun rights debate in each of these cases.
In general, research into media coverage of mass shootings concludes that the aftermath
of such events does indeed renew the gun control versus gun rights debate in American politics.
Schildkraut et al. (2018) find that increased public attention to mass shooting events fosters
punitive attitudes, a demand for increased security and prevention, and an appeal for legislative
change, despite the fact that such attempts have been largely unsuccessful in the past.150 Gun
control advocates often feel empowered to pursue legislative change in the wake of mass
shootings, and are motivated to advocate for change with greater intensity.
In addition, Porfiri et al. (2019) find that increased attention to the issue of gun violence
may elicit a parallel reaction among gun owners and gun rights supporters. People may fear that
their access to firearms will be soon restrained and thus opt to purchase firearms before this
happens; their study concludes that there is indeed a link between media coverage of firearm
control policies and firearm acquisition nationwide.151 Furthermore, Porfiri et al. (2019) argue
that some people propose that restricted firearm ownership would help to stop or reduce the
epidemics of mass shootings; others argue that empowering people with firearms is the solution
for reducing mass shooting casualties through deterrence and self-protection.
Like gun control advocates in the wake of mass shootings, gun rights supporters are often
equally motivated to support their cause. Gun rights advocates mobilize against new gun control
regulations and attempt to secure their personal access to firearms by purchasing them in greater
quantities following mass shootings. This noted dichotomy between gun control and gun rights
supporters in the wake of mass shootings clearly illustrates that such events have great potential
150
Schildkraut, Elsass, and Meredith, “Mass Shootings and the Media.” Pg. 223
151
Porfiri et al., “Media Coverage and Firearm Acquisition in the Aftermath of a Mass
Shooting.” Pg. 916
97
to spur legislative change if legislators respond to the wishes of either of the two competing sides
of the gun debate.
More than any other single event, the aftermath of mass shootings has the greatest
propensity to bring the gun debate to the forefront of American politics and to open a “policy
window” in which gun-related legislation is more likely to be passed. Additionally, the NRA
tends to be the most defensive and active following mass shootings because the aftermaths of
mass shootings are when gun control tends to have the highest probability of passing in
Congress. For these two reasons, the aftermaths of mass shootings are the most interesting
periods in which to study the gun debate.
The cases of Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook were chosen for four distinct
reasons: (1) each case generated a large amount of media coverage, (2) high levels of public
attention were devoted to each case, (3) the NRA response was noticeably different between
cases, and (4) the legislative response was noticeably different between cases. These key
differences among the cases make them particularly useful contexts in which to evaluate the
theory advanced in this study. If this theory holds across the varying circumstances of three
different mass shootings, it strengthens the validity of the theory. Each case can be organized
according to the amount of pro- or anti-gun legislation proposed in response to the shooting and
whether the NRA was active in its response to each shooting.
This framework is outlined in the table below. Each case study fits into one box in each
diagram, which is a useful method of evaluating the cases and the legislative and NRA response
they generated. Each case will be discussed in turn.

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Columbine
At 11:10 a.m. on April 20, 1999, 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold
arrived in separate cars at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. The pair, each dressed
in trench coats, proceeded into the school cafeteria and placed two duffel bags that each
contained propane bombs on cafeteria tables. They then walked back to their separate cars and
waited for the bombs to go off; the bombs were set to explode at 11:17 a.m. Once the clock
passed 11:17 and the pair realized their bombs had failed to detonate, they began their shooting
spree.152
152
History.com Editors, “Columbine Shooting,” HISTORY, accessed February 24, 2020,
https://www.history.com/topics/1990s/columbine-high-school-shootings.
99
Harris and Klebold began shooting students outside of the school, and then proceeded
inside, ultimately reaching the school’s library. By 11:35 a.m. the pair had shot and killed 12
students and one teacher and wounded more than 20 other students and teachers. By noon,
Klebold and Harris ultimately shot and killed themselves. At the time, this massacre at
Columbine High School was the worst high school shooting in U.S. history and sparked a major
national debate on gun control and school safety.153 In addition, the massacre at Columbine also
generated massive amounts of media coverage as a wide-ranging investigation into the
backgrounds of the shooters was begun and the American public demanded answers.
Columbine was instantly a major news story nationally and captivated the attention of
American people. No other school shooting had reached a nationwide audience so fast, or taken
such a hold on the news cycle.154 Research into media coverage of Columbine illustrates the
extent to which Columbine dominated the news cycle for months after the shooting occurred.
Robinson (2011), for example, found that the 1999 Columbine High School shooting was the
most covered crime story on evening news broadcasts, with 319 stories about the event being
aired that year.155 In addition, Robinson (2011) found that the three major news networks (ABC,
CBS, and NBC) devoted more than half of their nightly news airtime to stories about Columbine
for up to a month after the shooting.156
In addition to TV broadcasts, Columbine stories dominated news broadcasts across the
country for months. The story made the front page of The New York Times the next day and
remained there for a week and a half, and Newman (2006) found that approximately 10,000
153
History.com Editors.
154
Annika Neklason, “The Columbine Blueprint,” The Atlantic, April 19, 2019,
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/04/columbines-20th-anniversary-mass-medi
a-shooting/587359/.
155
156
Schildkraut, Elsass, and Meredith. Pg. 227
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articles were published about the Columbine shooting in the nation’s 50 largest newspapers in
the year following the shooting.157 The pervasive media attention devoted to Columbine had the
ultimate effect of propelling the gun control debate to the forefront of American politics
throughout 1999 and into the election year of 2000.
As a result of the heightened public attention to Columbine, calls for gun control at the
federal level were reignited. National shock and outrage put unprecedented pressure on Congress
to respond, and the public support for new gun regulations was so high that many members of
Congress – clearly a majority in the Senate and perhaps, with the right set of provisions, a
majority in the House – were open to passing new regulations.158 Even one year following the
shootings, 66% of Americans believed that gun control was more important than protecting gun
owners’ rights, which 29% of Americans believed. 159 The amount of public attention devoted to
Columbine coverage, the percentage of Americans supporting increased gun control, and the
apparent willingness of Congress to consider new restrictions put gun rights proponents on the
defensive. These calls for new restrictions were spearheaded by President Clinton. One week
following the shooting, President Clinton urged legislation that would tighten access to guns,
impose penalties on parents and other adults who allowed children access to guns, and require
for the first time a background check for anyone who sought to purchase a weapon at a gun
show.160
The Republican-controlled Senate responded swiftly to renewed calls for gun control in
the direct aftermath of Columbine. The Senate took only one month to draft, debate, and pass a
157
Neklason, “The Columbine Blueprint”; Schildkraut, Elsass, and Meredith, “Mass Shootings
and the Media.”
158
Robert J. Spitzer, The Politics of Gun Control, 3 edition (Washington: Cq Pr, 2003); Lacombe,
Gunning for the Masses: How the NRA Builds Political Power.
159
“Columbine Shooting Biggest News Draw of 1999.”
160
DeConde, Gun Violence in America: The Struggle for Control. Pgs. 276-277
101
juvenile crime bill that contained the gun control provisions of child trigger locks with newly
sold handguns as well as required background checks at gun shows.161 The first draft of this bill
had been crafted with the assistance of NRA lawyers and did not contain a provision mandating
background checks at gun shows. The public backlash over the lack of the background check
provision was so intense that on the very next day, a crucial number of Republicans reversed
themselves and a new version of the bill containing a universal background check provision
ultimately passed 51-50, with the tiebreaking vote of vice president Al Gore. 162 The passage of
this bill was perceived as a major victory for gun control advocates. Even in a
Republican-controlled Senate, it seemed as if the horror of Columbine and the subsequent public
support for gun control had proved strong enough to pass meaningful gun legislation. However,
the speed of the Senate’s process was key to the bill’s passage; its quick passage through the
Senate made it difficult for the NRA to mount a strong campaign against the bill. 163
The Republican-controlled House responded quite differently. While the House
ultimately passed a version of the juvenile crime bill that the Senate had passed, the House
version contained no gun control provisions.164 In contrast to the bill proposal and consideration
process that had occurred in the Senate, the House process was heavily delayed by NRA-allied
legislators. This stalling by several key House Republicans sponsored by the NRA gave the
organization the time they needed to mobilize opposition. Also, NRA mobilization occurred at a
time of declining public interest in the gun control debate as schools let out, families went on
vacation, and the country’s attention began to turn to other matters.165
161
162
DeConde, Gun Violence in America: The Struggle for Control. Pg. 278
163
164
Lacombe. Pg. 246
165
Spitzer, The Politics of Gun Control, 2003. Pg. 133
102
As Lacombe (2019) notes, “although House Speaker Dennis Hastert signaled a
willingness to consider “common sense” gun control provisions, other influential Republicans in
the House – like Majority Whip Tom DeLay – opposed any bill that contained gun control; this
internal debate among Republican leadership slowed the process down considerably.”166 The
delay in the House legislative process induced by the NRA’s House allies was key to the NRA’s
response to the Columbine shooting. The delay gave the organization an opportunity to
effectively organize its modes of influence in order to mount a mobilization campaign against the
proposed gun control legislation.
The NRA used several modes of influence in its mobilization campaign against anti-gun
legislation proposed after Columbine. Perhaps the most salient mode was the PR campaign
launched by NRA senior leadership. Soon after the shooting, Charlton Heston, the president of
the NRA at the time, stated “We cannot, we must not, let tragedy lay waste to the most rare,
hard-won right in history.”167 The effect of this rhetoric was to send a clear message to the NRA
membership base: the gun control legislation being proposed in Congress threatens the Second
Amendment rights of every gun owner. For the NRA’s membership, the logical implication of
such messaging was to mobilize against the legislation by calling and writing to members of
Congress to persuade them to vote against the bill. In addition, Wayne LaPierre, CEO and
Executive Vice President of the NRA, appeared on cable news programs to advance the NRA PR
campaign. LaPierre told CNN that “I think that what they're really after is trying to dismantle this
great American freedom, the Second Amendment, piece by piece.” 168 Just like Heston, LaPierre
unambiguously stated the position of the NRA on the gun control legislation being proposed in
166
167
168
103
Congress: while this legislation may appear relatively minor in scope, it attacks Second
Amendment freedoms and can ultimately lead to a total revocation of Second Amendment rights.
Aside from the PR campaign launched by NRA leadership, the NRA used other modes of
influence to advocate for its position, one of which was its financial resources. Research into
NRA spending during the summer of 1999 indicates that the NRA spent over a million dollars in
attempts to mobilize its members into action, spending $750,000 on mass mailings and $300,000
on phone banks.169 While this spending on member outreach certainly helped disseminate the
NRA’s messaging by reaching a broad audience, the spending alone was not enough to launch
the mobilization campaign into action.
Lacombe (2019) notes that the NRA’s spending may have worked in conjunction with its
identity-based mobilization efforts.170 In other words, NRA spending on member outreach did
not necessarily mobilize NRA members by itself; it may have served to simply enhance the
identity-based appeals that the NRA had always made to its membership. An additional financial
mode of influence used during the aftermath of Columbine was campaign contributions in the
second half of the 1990s. While the average size of the NRA’s contributions did not change
markedly from the beginning of the decade, they became increasingly partisan with 86% of its
1998 contributions going to Republicans compared to 80% in 1994 and just 63% in 1992.171
Through membership communications via phone banks and mass mailings as well as campaign
contributions to an increasing proportion of Republicans, NRA spending was a frequently used
mode of influence in the aftermath of Columbine.
169
Spitzer, The Politics of Gun Control, 2003; Lacombe, Gunning for the Masses: How the NRA
Builds Political Power.
170
171
Lacombe. Pg. 251
104
Finally, an unintended yet potent development that enhanced the NRA’s modes of
influence following Columbine was a notable increase in the membership of the NRA. DeConde
(2001) notes that the NRA’s public statements immediately brought a massive response as well
as a rise in its membership rolls; the antigun sentiment frightened gun owners who believed their
Second Amendment rights were in jeopardy. 172 As noted by Porfiri et al. (2019) earlier, strong
efforts supporting new gun control legislation often elicit parallel, opposite reactions from gun
owners and the NRA, who act to protect the perceived attacks on their rights to own guns. This
reaction occurred following Columbine. The NRA reported both substantial growth in
membership and fundraising in the year after Columbine, an outcome it attributed to fear of new
gun control laws.173 Thanks to this increase in membership, the NRA was able to rely on an even
larger pool of members to contribute financially to the organization and to actively oppose gun
control legislation by contacting members of Congress to voice their opposition.
The NRA mobilization campaign against the juvenile crime bill proposed in the House,
backed by its aggressive PR campaign and spending on member outreach, proved successful in
ultimately killing the effort to pass substantive gun control legislation following Columbine.
While the House juvenile crime bill ultimately passed, the gun control provisions in the Senate’s
version of the bill had been completely removed. Furthermore, the House and Senate bills were
not reconciled during the 1999 session and conferees never even met in 2000, perhaps due to fear
of acting on gun control in an election year.174 The NRA was successful at disrupting the
legislative process for this particular piece of gun control legislation, but this study finds that it
did not stop legislators from continuing to propose anti-gun legislation in the GOP-controlled
House and Senate throughout the 106th Congress (1999-2000).

172
DeConde, Gun Violence in America: The Struggle for Control. Pg. 277
173
174
Lacombe. Pg. 246
105
According to the original dataset of bills generated in this study, 196 total anti-gun bills
and 37 total pro-gun bills were proposed in the 106th Congress (1999-2001). In the four months
between the beginning of the Congress and the Columbine shooting that occurred on April 20,
1999, 54 anti-gun bills and 13 pro gun bills were proposed in Congress, which was an average of
13.5 anti-gun bills per month. This finding suggests that in the absence of a major national shock
like Columbine, gun control remained a significant legislative priority as it had in previous
Congresses under the Clinton administration. However, after Columbine, the proposal of
anti-gun legislation increased significantly.
In the 2 months between the April 20, 1999 Columbine shooting and the passage of the
House juvenile crime bill (H.R. 1501), which was seen as an NRA victory, 57 anti-gun bills were
proposed, and only 5 pro-gun bills were proposed, which is a rate of 28.5 anti-gun bills per
month. This rapid increase in the rate of bill proposal over this two-month period signifies that
legislators were willing to be responsive to public demands for gun control legislation in the
direct aftermath of Columbine. The key finding, however, is that even after the passage of H.R.
1501, 85 anti-gun bills and 19 pro-gun bills were proposed over the remaining 18 months in the
106th Congress. This is a rate of 4.7 anti-gun bills proposed per month following the passage of
H.R. 1501.
While anti-gun bills were certainly not proposed at the same rate in this period as they
were prior to Columbine and in the two months following Columbine, 4.7 bills per month still
provides evidence of a notable legislative effort to pass anti-gun legislation. The average rate of
anti-gun bill proposal per month throughout the eight years of the Clinton administration was 6.1
anti-gun bills per month, and the average rate of anti-gun bill proposal between 1991 and 2018
was 4.2 anti-gun bills per month.

106
The rate of 4.7 anti-gun bill proposals per month was lower than the monthly averages
earlier in the 106th Congress, but it is remarkably average in the context of the Clinton
administration as well as the entire dataset of bills (1991-2018). This result suggests that
members of Congress were not significantly affected by electoral fear potentially inspired by the
NRA. Legislators may have indeed recognized that most of their bills stood no realistic chance of
passing following the passage of H.R. 1501, yet they continued to propose a substantial amount
of anti-gun legislation even after the NRA conducted their mobilization campaign. This
campaign, which led to the failure to include gun control provisions in the juvenile crime bill,
was intended to signify the NRA’s strength. While the average rate of anti-gun bill proposal
decreased after Columbine, the rate of proposals still remained relatively average in comparison
to proposal rates in the 1990s and overall. The table below categorizes both the NRA and
legislative response throughout the Congress encompassing the Columbine shooting.

107
Columbine presents an interesting case study because the evidence illustrates that though
the NRA was active in the aftermath of Columbine and throughout the 106 th Congress, legislators
continued to propose an abundance of anti-gun legislation, even after NRA legislative victories.
The responses of the NRA and Congress to the shooting at Virginia Tech were markedly
different.
108
Virginia Tech
On April 16, 2007, the country was again traumatized by another horrifying mass
shooting, this time on the campus of Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia. A senior
at the school, Seung-Hui Cho, was armed with a 9mm Glock and .22 caliber Walther pistol and
hundreds of rounds of ammunition that he was able to purchase because of a loophole in Virginia
state laws that allowed him to purchase the weapons without a background check. Cho had a
significant history of mental health problems, yet because he was not involuntarily committed to
a mental institution, his prior appearance before a judge and evaluation at a mental health facility
did not show up when he purchased the guns at a local pawn shop.
At 7:15 am, Cho shot his first two victims in West Ambler Johnston Hall dormitory. He
then returned to his dorm, where he prepared a package containing pictures of him with
weapons, writings, and video clips to send to NBC News in New York, and he also wrote a letter
to the English Department of Virginia Tech. He then mailed his package from the Blacksburg
post office. At about 9:40 a.m., Cho entered Norris Hall, a classroom building, and chained and
locked the main doors of the building. He then proceeded to walk through the hallways, firing at
people and into classrooms. 27 students and 5 faculty members were killed, 17 more were shot
and injured, 10 jumped from second-floor windows to escape the attack, and countless more
were not physically hurt but would deal with PTSD that would last a lifetime. After shooting
students in Norris Hall, Cho ultimately shot and killed himself. To date, the massacre at Virginia
Tech was the worst mass shooting in US history.175

175
Thomas P. Kapsidelis, After Virginia Tech: Guns, Safety, and Healing in the Era of Mass
Shootings (University of Virginia Press, 2019); Editors, “Virginia Tech Shooting Leaves 32
Dead,” HISTORY, April 13, 2011,
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/massacre-at-virginia-tech-leaves-32-dead; Drew
Griffin, Jeanne Meserve, and Christine Romans, “Campus Killer’s Purchases Apparently within
Gun Laws - CNN.Com,” accessed March 6, 2020,
https://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/19/gun.laws/index.html.
109
The media response to Virginia Tech resembled Columbine in several key ways. One
similarity was that the coverage ran non-stop in the month directly following the shooting in
newspapers and on cable television news programs. For instance, in the 30 days following the
2007 Virginia Tech shooting, 63 articles (excluding op-eds) were published in The New York
Times alone, and the majority of the coverage took place within the first five days after the
shooting, a trend that was similar in the reporting of Columbine.176 Additionally, the Virginia
Tech shooting attracted more public interest and received more news coverage than any other
story throughout all of 2007, and 51% of all news coverage for the week was devoted to the
Virginia Tech shooting and its aftermath.177 Research into media coverage of the event has shown
that media outlets covered a variety of different themes of the shooting, including the
background of the shooter, the impact on victims, and the response of emergency personnel.178
However, one of the most important themes covered was how Cho was able to bypass a loophole
in gun regulations to purchase the guns he used in the shooting.
This media coverage brought focused attention to the federal background check system
that had been created 14 years earlier by the Brady bill, and to a broad failure by states like
Virginia to submit mental health records to a national database.179 The effect of increased public
attention to the federal background check system reignited calls for legislation that tightened gun
restrictions, which was spearheaded by many of the families of victims at Virginia Tech.
Ultimately, while these efforts did focus the attention of the public and Congress on reforming
176
177
“Widespread Interest in Virginia Tech Shootings,” Pew Research Center for the People and
the Press (blog), April 25, 2007,
https://www.people-press.org/2007/04/25/widespread-interest-in-virginia-tech-shootings/.
178
Jaclyn Schildkraut, “Media and Massacre: A Comparative Analysis of the Reporting of the
2007 Virginia Tech Shootings,” Fast Capitalism 9, no. 1 (2019).
179
Jennifer Mascia and Mike Spies, “Virginia Tech: What’s Changed Since the Deadliest School
Shooting in U.S. History,” The Trace, April 13, 2017,
https://www.thetrace.org/2017/04/virginia-tech-shooting-10-year-anniversary/.
110
the background check system, no significant effort at establishing broad gun control regulations,
such as gun registration or universal background checks, occurred.180 One potential explanation
for this is that public opinion polling on gun control illustrated markedly less support for the
enactment of new gun control legislation following Virginia Tech than it had following
Columbine.
Gallup has conducted a public opinion survey on gun control since 1990, asking the same
exact question once per year from 2001 through the present, and at irregular intervals between
1990 and 2001. The question is “In general, do you feel that laws covering the sale of firearms
should be made more strict, less strict, or kept as they are now?” In October 2006, 6 months
before the Virginia Tech shooting, the results of this poll displayed 56% of respondents saying
the laws should be more strict, 9% saying the laws should be less strict, and 33% saying the laws
should be kept as they are now. The question was asked again one year later in October 2007, 6
months after the Virginia Tech shooting. This time, respondents were measured as reporting 51%
saying gun laws should be more strict, 8% saying the laws should be less strict, and 39% saying
the laws should be kept as they are.181
This is an unexpected finding; six months after the worst shooting in U.S. history,
Americans were polled as having less support for increased gun control than they had one year
earlier, when America was not experiencing the aftermath of a major mass shooting. A decrease
in public support for increased gun control legislation was one key factor explaining the lack of a
broader effort by Congress to enact sweeping gun control legislation in the aftermath of the
Virginia Tech shooting.
180
181
Gallup, “Guns,” Gallup.com, May 18, 2007, https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/Guns.aspx.
111
Nonetheless, Congress ultimately passed a gun control bill that was marketed as
strengthening the federal background check system. In a move backed by both the NRA and
Virginia Tech families, Congress allocated $1.3 billion in grants to encourage states to report
mental health data to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).182 At face
value, the passage of this legislation appeared to be a victory for gun control advocates, as it
addressed the loophole that Cho was able to take advantage of in purchasing the weapons used in
the Virginia Tech shooting.
However, closer examination of the legislation reveals that it did little to tighten gun
regulations. The NICS Improvement bill only allocated the $1.3 billion for spending on
strengthening the federal background check system; it did not actually appropriate the money.
Whether the money was ultimately spent would be determined by Congress at a future date, and
there was no guarantee that Congress would follow through and appropriate the authorized
funding.183 The Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit that conducts research and advocacy
supporting gun control, called the legislation “nothing less than a pro-gun Trojan Horse.”184
Melzer (2009) notes that despite Democrats controlling both the Senate and the House, the best
response they came up with in response to the worst mass shooting in U.S. history was to accede
to the NRA’s demands through a narrow piece of gun control legislation largely meant to fix
inadequacies in earlier legislation.185 The NICS bill was intended as Congress’ main response to
the horror experienced at Virginia Tech, but it neither solved the issue that contributed to Cho
acquiring his weapons nor accomplished broader gun control measures that maintained the
support of a majority of the American public.

182
Kapsidelis, After Virginia Tech. Pg. 6
183
184
Sugarmann, “Trojan Horse Gun Control”; Lacombe, Gunning for the Masses: How the NRA
Builds Political Power.
185
112
The Democrats’ lack of aggressiveness on pursuing meaningful, substantive gun control
policy in 2007 and 2008 can be explained by three main factors. The first is that George W. Bush
was the president and clearly stated that he would not support efforts to enact new gun control
legislation. Spitzer (2008) notes that this position was consistent throughout his presidency,
which was a presidency more in tune with the preferences of the NRA than any presidency in the
history of the country.186 The second is that Democrats had begun to see gun control as a losing
issue for their party electorally. Democrats were cognizant of the fact that they needed to appeal
to swing voters in the generally conservative “heartland” states to maintain power in Congress,
and to do so effectively, they needed to refrain from pursuing gun control policies that would not
appeal to these voters.187 Democrats believed that support for gun control had contributed to their
major losses in the 1994 midterms as well as Al Gore’s loss in the 2000 presidential election, and
did not want this perceived trend to continue.188
The third factor is that the country was faced with a wide variety of pressing issues
throughout 2007 and 2008, and gun control was simply not as pressing as other issues. Examples
of other issues demanding legislators’ attention were the collapse of the real estate market, its
ensuing financial crisis that triggered the Great Recession, and the Iraq War. Legislators’
attention and resources were spread thin while dealing with these crises, and coupled with
President Bush’s clear opposition to gun control and the Democrats’ fear of losing key support
from swing voters in the heartland, expansive gun control was largely a non-starter for
Democrats.
186
Robert J. Spitzer, The Politics of Gun Control, Fourth edition (Washington, D.C: CQ Press,
2007). Pg. XIII
187
Peter Wallsten, “Democrats Hesitant to Push Gun Laws,” Los Angeles Times, April 20, 2007,
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-apr-20-na-gunpol20-story.html.
188
113
The NRA did not launch a significant opposition campaign following the Virginia Tech
shooting because no expansive gun control bills were being seriously considered. In contrast to
Columbine, where the NRA launched an aggressive PR campaign through the media and
advertisements to combat gun control legislation in the House, the organization released only a
brief statement expressing condolences to the victims and encouraging the country not to engage
in political discussions. The NRA was far less aggressive in their response in the aftermath of
Virginia Tech than they were following Columbine because expansive gun control legislation
was simply not being proposed at the same rate. This study finds that the number of total bills
proposed and the rate of bill proposal following the Virginia Tech did not deviate from the
average number of bill proposals. This finding is illustrated by the quantitative evidence in
Figures 3 and 4 in Chapter 5.
This is a surprising finding in relation to the previous finding in the aftermath of
Columbine, given that Virginia Tech drew comparable amounts of media coverage and public
attention as other mass shootings. The 110th Congress was sworn in on January 3, 2007, and the
shooting at Virginia Tech took place just over three months later, on April 16, 2007. The 110 th
Congress left office on January 3, 2009. In the three months between the beginning of the 110th
Congress and the Virginia Tech shooting, 18 anti-gun and 9 pro-gun bills were introduced in
Congress. After the Virginia Tech shooting, 37 anti-gun and 30 pro-gun bills were introduced.
Over the remaining 21 months in the 110th Congress after the Virginia Tech shooting, an average
of 1.8 anti-gun bills and 1.4 pro-gun bills were introduced per month. This rate is far less than
the rate of proposal in the aftermath of Columbine, which was 4.7 anti-gun bills per month.
The Virginia Tech case study fits into the “Weak Anti-Gun Legislative Effort” and “Weak
NRA Mobilization Efforts” box in the qualitative framework table because there was no
114
noticeable increase in the proposal of anti-gun legislation and the NRA did not launch an
identifiable mobilization campaign against gun control legislation following Virginia Tech.
This empirical evidence supports the claim that Democrats believed gun control was a losing
issue for their party following Virginia Tech. Because Democrats were fearful of the electoral
consequences of supporting gun control, they proposed fewer anti-gun bills in the aftermath of
the Virginia Tech shooting. The trend of unwillingness of Democrats to pursue gun control
legislation continued throughout George W. Bush’s presidency and throughout most of Barack
Obama’s first term, but this changed significantly following the shooting at Sandy Hook.
115
Sandy Hook
As referenced in Chapter 1, the slaughter of 20 children, all either 6 or 7 years old, and 6
adult teachers that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012
traumatized the nation and instantly reignited the gun control debate at the federal level. Sandy
Hook catalyzed a new push for gun control laws in a manner not seen since Columbine. The
media, the American people, and the Obama administration reacted strongly in the aftermath of
Sandy Hook: there was more media coverage, more public attention devoted to the issue, and a
strong pursuit of gun control legislation by the Obama administration.
The national news media covered Sandy Hook at a level not seen since the aftermath of
the Columbine shooting. This coverage dominated cable television news networks, newspapers,
and social media. In their analysis of New York Times articles devoted to coverage of mass
shootings, Silva and Capellan (2019) find that Sandy Hook is second only to Columbine in total
number of articles covering a mass shooting.189 In addition, in a comparative analysis of
Columbine and Sandy Hook, Schildkraut and Muschert (2014) find that while victim memorials
drove the Columbine coverage, the coverage of Sandy Hook was driven primarily by discussion
of gun control and other preventive measures.190
The combination of intense media coverage and an increased focus on the gun control
debate in that coverage focused large amounts of public attention on the shooting. Sandy Hook
was the second most closely followed news story of 2012, falling just short of the 2012
presidential election.191 Furthermore, an analysis of social media, online blogs, and newspaper
opinion articles conducted by Pew Research Center illustrates that gun policy reform was the
189
190
Jaclyn Schildkraut and Glenn W. Muschert, “Media Salience and the Framing of Mass Murder
in Schools: A Comparison of the Columbine and Sandy Hook Massacres,” Homicide Studies 18,
no. 1 (February 1, 2014): pg. 38
191
“Election, Tragedies Dominate Top Stories of 2012.”
116
number one online conversation topic in the three days following the shooting. On blogs and on
Twitter, discussion of gun policy comprised almost 30% of the social media conversation,
exceeding even prayers and expressions of sympathy; within that discussion, calls for stricter gun
control measures exceeded defenses of current gun laws and policies by more than two to one.192
In addition, this same study analyzed op-ed columns and editorials in 11 of the nation’s
top newspapers in the three days following the shooting and found that articles calling for stricter
gun control laws outnumbered those defending current laws by a margin of more than six to
one.193 In short, the media coverage of Sandy Hook focused heavily on calls for gun control
legislation, and as a result, gun control became a key issue for many Americans.
The legislative response to Sandy Hook was markedly different from the response to
Virginia Tech. President Obama clearly expressed his support for expanded gun control
legislation, including support for expanded background checks that would apply to private sales
and a renewed assault weapons ban.194 An excerpt from President Obama’s speech in Newtown
after the shooting exemplifies the shift in his position on the issue:
“We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must
change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No
single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless
act of violence in our society.
But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely, we can do better than this. If there is even
one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town, from the
grief that has visited Tucson, and Aurora, and Oak Creek, and Newtown, and
communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that – then surely we have an
obligation to try.”195
192
“In Social Media and Opinion Pages, Newtown Sparks Calls for Gun Reform,” Pew Research
Center’s Journalism Project (blog), December 20, 2012,
https://www.journalism.org/2012/12/20/social-media-and-opinion-pages-newtown-sparks-calls-g
un-reform/.
193
“In Social Media and Opinion Pages, Newtown Sparks Calls for Gun Reform.”
194
195
Matthew Lysiak, Newtown: An American Tragedy, 1st edition (New York: Gallery Books,
2013).
117
Though the House was controlled by Republicans, President Obama and other
Democratic leadership made pursuing gun control a top legislative priority following Sandy
Hook. Lacombe (2019) notes that “the Democrats knew that the NRA would not support any
proposals they put forward, but went out of their way to produce a bill that they hoped it would
choose to not strongly oppose.”196 The result of this approach was the development of the
Manchin-Toomey bill, which sought to extend mandatory background checks to gun shows and
private sales. This “universal background checks” proposition was incredibly popular among the
general public, with 81% of Americans supporting the proposition. 197 In an effort to curry the
favor of the NRA, several provisions that actually weakened gun regulations were added to the
Manchin-Toomey bill. These included long-time NRA priorities such as reducing the waiting
period for background checks from 72 hours to 48 hours, making it easier to transport and sell
guns across states, and prohibiting the federal government from creating a national gun registry
using gun sales records.198 The Democrats made a determined effort to craft legislation that
would not provoke the NRA to use its modes of influence to mobilize against the bill. However,
despite legislators’ best efforts, the NRA still opposed the legislation.
The NRA response to the Sandy Hook shooting was active and aggressive. Far different
from their inaction following Virginia Tech, the NRA quickly launched a PR campaign to state
their position on the renewed debate about increasing gun control; PR campaigns have proven to
be an effective mode of influence for the NRA. In the week after the shooting, Wayne LaPierre,
CEO and Executive Vice President of the NRA, gave a forceful speech in which he directed
blame for the shooting toward other aspects of society, such as the media, the movie industry,
196
197
“Broad Support for Renewed Background Checks Bill, Skepticism about Its Chances,” Pew
Research Center for the People and the Press (blog), May 23, 2013.
198
118
video-game manufacturers, Congress’ failure to create a database of the mentally ill, and a
decrease in federal gun prosecutions for the violence that occurred at Sandy Hook.199
In this speech, LaPierre famously stated that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a
gun is a good guy with a gun.”200 In addition, LaPierre called for the presence of armed security
guards in every school across the country to defend against future school shooting attempts.201
Taken together, the various targets of LaPierre’s blame illustrates a strategy of deflecting
attention away from lack of gun control as a cause of mass shootings, which has proven a key
element of the NRA’s PR strategy following mass shootings.
The NRA PR campaign also included a call to action to its supporters, which was another
key mode of influence used by the NRA after Sandy Hook. In an article published in the
February 2013 edition of American Rifleman, the NRA’s monthly membership magazine,
LaPierre stated “If the Second Amendment does survive, it will only be because NRA Members
and friends of liberty politically and socially mobilized like never before.”202 This article was
written to prime NRA members for what the NRA expected would be a needed mobilization
campaign. Appeals to the necessity of mobilization would continue throughout early 2013,
culminating in the NRA’s opposition to the Manchin-Toomey background checks bill.
The NRA used two additional modes of influence in the aftermath of Sandy Hook. The
first was easing membership requirements. The organization offered discounts on its different
membership packages, and in the six months after Newtown, as gun-control advocates pushed
199
“Remarks from the NRA Press Conference on Sandy Hook School Shooting, Delivered on
Dec. 21, 2012 (Transcript),” Washington Post, sec. Politics, accessed February 26, 2020,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/remarks-from-the-nra-press-conference-on-sandy-hook
-school-shooting-delivered-on-dec-21-2012-transcript/2012/12/21/bd1841fe-4b88-11e2-a6a6-aa
bac85e8036_story.html.
200
201
202
Lacombe. Pg. 256
119
for legislation, the NRA was able to recruit more than a million new members. 203 There were two
main effects of this mode of influence. A larger membership base brought in more membership
dues, which expanded the NRA’s financial resources. In addition, a larger membership base
created a far more powerful voice that the NRA could use to mobilize against gun control
measures.
The other mode of influence used by the NRA was their mobilization campaign
specifically against the Manchin-Toomey bill, which contained several dimensions. The NRA
increased spending on member outreach and advertising, increased the frequency and intensity of
its communications to its membership base, and announced that they would be grading
legislators’ votes on the legislation. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, scheduled the vote
on the Manchin-Toomey bill for April 17, 2013. Throughout March 2013, the NRA was active in
lobbying senators who had not yet decided whether they would support the bill — this included
familiar lobbying tactics such as lobbyists gaining face time with the senators, having
discussions with Senate aides and urging NRA members in their states to contact the Washington
offices.204 In the two weeks prior to the vote, the NRA was exceptionally active along all
dimensions of its mobilization campaign. Lacombe (2019) notes that large volumes of calls from
NRA members came into the offices of members of Congress in opposition, with calls to
Toomey’s office numbering nine to one against the bill and calls to Manchin’s office numbering
200 to 1 against the bill.205
203
204
Draper.
205
120
Ultimately, the Manchin-Toomey bill failed in the Senate by a 54-46 margin; it needed 60
votes to advance.206 It seemed as if the NRA, through their modes of influence of an aggressive
PR campaign that deflected blame away from guns and mobilized supporters, a campaign to
make NRA membership far easier to join, and appeals to their members to contact Senators to
express disapproval of the Manchin-Toomey bill, had prevailed again in defeating the passage of
substantive gun control legislation. The failure of this legislation was perceived as a major blow
to the gun control advocacy movement, killing the momentum it had previously built following
Sandy Hook.207
The data analysis of gun-related bill proposals in this study suggests that the
NRA-backed campaign against the Manchin-Toomey bill was successful in limiting the number
of anti-gun bills proposed throughout the remainder of the 113th Congress. The proportion test
analysis conducted in Chapter 5 indicates that there was a significantly higher proportion of
anti-gun bills proposed in this Congress, but a much higher proportion of bills were proposed in
the three months between the beginning of the Congress on January 3, 2013 and the failure of the
Manchin-Toomey bill on April 17, 2013 than in the remaining 21 months in the 113 th Congress.
57 anti-gun bills and 22 pro-gun bills were proposed in the roughly three months between Jan. 3
and April 17. This amounts to an average of 19 bills proposed per month. From April 17, 2013
until the end of the 113th Congress on Jan. 3, 2015, 55 anti-gun bills were proposed. This
amounts to an average of 2.6 bills per month.
206
Aaron Blake, “Manchin-Toomey Gun Amendment Fails,” Washington Post, April 17, 2013,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2013/04/17/manchin-toomey-gun-amen
dment-fails/.
207
Ana Radelat, “Sandy Hook Parents Watch as Gun Bill Dies in Congress,” The CT Mirror
(blog), April 18, 2013,
https://ctmirror.org/2013/04/18/sandy-hook-parents-watch-gun-bill-dies-congress/.
121
While it is true that Congress did not stop proposing anti-gun legislation for the
remainder of the Congress following the failure of the Manchin-Toomey bill, the decrease in the
rate of bill proposal is remarkable. Through their modes of influence, the NRA played a major
role in the defeat of the Manchin-Toomey legislation, and by extension, the decrease in proposal
of anti-gun legislation. As a case study, Sandy Hook best fits into the “Significant NRA
Mobilization Efforts” and “Weak Anti-Gun Legislative Effort” categories in the framework used
throughout this chapter. This is displayed in Table 11 below.

122
It is important to acknowledge the lack of a case study in the one empty box in Table 5,
which is the box that corresponds with “Weak NRA Mobilization Efforts Post Shooting” and
“Strong Anti-Gun Legislative Effort Post Shooting.” A fourth case study was not conducted
because of time constraints on producing this study. However, it is also difficult to find a mass
shooting incident that neatly conforms to the categories of “Weak NRA Mobilization” and
“Strong Anti-Gun Legislative Effort” in the timespan covered by this study (1990-2018). The
mass shooting that comes closest is the Las Vegas shooting, which was the deadliest mass
shooting in U.S. history at the time of this study and occurred on October 1, 2017.
123
The data analysis of anti-gun bill proposals from Chapter 5 indicates that there was a
significant increase in the proposal of anti-gun legislation in Congress in the aftermath of the Las
Vegas shooting. Furthermore, the NRA largely went silent in the direct aftermath of the shooting,
and days later, even supported a ban on bump stocks, which the Las Vegas shooter had used.208
This was a notable shift in the NRA’s tone in the aftermath of a mass shooting. Though they also
supported a relaxation of concealed carry firearm laws between states, the NRA did not actively
oppose legislative efforts to propose and pass new gun control laws in the aftermath of Las
Vegas. However, this period of the NRA’s relative calm and vigorous legislative efforts to pass
more gun regulations in Congress was short-lived.
The NRA’s behavior changed markedly following the shooting in Sutherland Springs,
Texas that occurred on November 5, 2017, just over one month after the Las Vegas shooting. The
gunman in Sutherland Springs shot and killed 26 people in First Baptist Church and upon exiting
the church, was immediately confronted by an NRA firearms instructor, who shot him once in
the leg and once in the torso.209 The NRA responded to the tragedy at Sutherland Springs by
championing the heroism of the firearms instructor and passionately defending their slogan, “the
only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” The NRA’s reaction to
Sutherland Springs ended the period of relative quiet that followed the Las Vegas shooting – the
NRA was back on the offensive against gun control.
208
David Smith, Rory Carroll, and Lois Beckett, “NRA Breaks Silence after Vegas Shooting to
Call for ‘additional Regulations’ on Bump Stocks,” The Guardian, October 5, 2017, sec. US
news,
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/05/republicans-guns-bump-stocks-las-vegas-sho
oting.
209
Ellie Silverman, “When a Bystander Fired on the Texas Church Shooter, the NRA Found Its
Hero,” Washington Post, accessed April 25, 2020,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/11/08/when-a-bystander-fired-on-th
e-texas-church-shooter-the-nra-found-its-hero/.
124
The NRA’s annual convention was held in Dallas in May 2018, six months after the Las
Vegas shooting, five months after the Sutherland Springs shooting, and three months after the
shooting in Parkland, Florida that killed 17 high school students. One of the key themes at the
convention was the heroic efforts of the NRA member that had shot the Sutherland Springs
shooter; the NRA’s promotion of the man and their “good guy with a gun” slogan served as a
counterweight to forceful calls for gun control advocated by Parkland students and families.210
Any hope for NRA acquiescence to new regulations on guns following the Las Vegas shooting,
such as a ban on bump stocks, was effectively nullified by the Sutherland Springs shooting and
the NRA’s reignited defense of gun ownership.
The period of time between October 2017 and November 2018 contained numerous
gruesome mass shootings in the United States: Las Vegas; Sutherland Springs; Parkland; Santa
Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas; Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and a
shooting at a bar in Thousand Oaks, California. 10 or more people were killed during each of
these shootings, with some experiencing far more deaths than that. This time period provides a
unique era to study the aftermaths of mass shootings and the response of the NRA and Congress.
While Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook provide important insights into the interaction
of the NRA and Congress, they occurred in three distinct periods in which each shooting was a
landmark event. The time period between October 2017 and November 2018 is completely novel
in modern American history; this country has never experienced so many egregious mass
shootings occurring in such a short span of time.
210
Jeremy Wallace, “Sutherland Springs Horror Energizes NRA, Gun-Rights Supporters,”
HoustonChronicle.com, May 5, 2018,
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Sutherland-Springs-horror-energizes-NR
A-12891072.php.
125
While this current study is unable to investigate each of these instances, this time period
containing multiple high-profile mass shootings provides an important avenue for future
research. Using the case study method of analysis in this chapter is likely to provide further
insights into the interaction between NRA mobilization efforts and the proposal of anti-gun
legislation in Congress.
126
Chapter 7
Conclusion
This study sought to examine the legislative influence of the NRA by examining this question:
does the NRA’s opposition to gun control through its various modes of influence reduce the
number of gun control bills proposed in Congress? Examination of this question is helpful in
understanding the overall influence of the NRA in Congress and illustrating broader themes of
special interest group power in the legislative process. The results of this study provide a partial
explanation for the lack of expansive gun control regulations at the federal level in the United
States. Existing research documents the NRA’s electoral influence and examines the
organization’s legislative influence qualitatively, but no quantitative study of the NRA’s
legislative influence has yet been conducted. This study fills that gap in the literature.
The theory advanced in this study of the NRA is that through lobbying activities that rely
on various modes of influence, the NRA inspires electoral fear among members of Congress.
The degree of electoral fear felt by legislators as a result of NRA lobbying is a key factor in
determining the number of gun control bills that are proposed in Congress. Based on this theory,
the hypothesis advanced in this study is that the NRA’s various modes of influence increase the
number of pro-gun bills proposed and decrease the number of anti-gun bills proposed in
Congress. This study sought to test this hypothesis using a mixed methodology relying on
quantitative tests and qualitative case studies. It examined data on NRA campaign contributions,
lobbying expenditures, online advertising expenditures, gun-related bill proposals in Congress,
and a wealth of historical and theoretical information in an attempt to test this question both
quantitatively and qualitatively.

127
The results of this study confirm the general hypothesis that when the NRA is more
active in their modes of influence, fewer gun control bills are proposed in Congress. However, it
is necessary to amend the modes of influence considered in the original hypothesis to include
NRA member mobilization as a key mode of influence. The combination of quantitative and
qualitative results generated in this study has proven that the NRA’s ability to mobilize its
membership is a key element of its power in Congress.
The quantitative portion of this research generated several significant findings. The first
finding is from the equality of proportions test in Chapter 5, which found that there were
significantly more anti-gun bills proposed between 1991 and 2001 compared to average levels of
anti-gun bill proposals between 1991 and 2018. Pro- and anti-gun bill proposals returned to
average levels throughout the 2000s. This continued until 2013, when significantly more
anti-gun bills were proposed. Proposals once again returned to average levels from 2014-2017.
The proportion of anti-gun bills proposed deviated from the mean once again in 2018, with a
greater than average number of anti-gun bill proposals.
These results suggest a clear trend: gun control was a legislative priority for members of
Congress from 1991 through 2001, evidenced by high rates of bill proposals. From 2002 through
2012, gun control was no longer a prominent legislative priority for members of Congress, as
neither pro-gun nor anti-gun bill proposals significantly exceeded the other. Finally, bill
proposals spiked once again in 2013 and 2018, likely in response to the horrific mass shootings
at Sandy Hook in 2012 and the cluster of mass shootings in Las Vegas, NV and Sutherland
Springs, TX in late 2017, as well as in Parkland, FL in early 2018.
The second finding generated by the quantitative research indicates fluctuations in
anti-gun bill proposals over time. Chapter 5 presented graphs displaying the number of bill
128
proposals over three distinct periods: 1991-1999, 2000-2009, and 2010-2018. These graphs
display noticeable spikes in anti-gun bill proposals directly following mass shootings. However,
they also display noticeably sharp declines in anti-gun bill proposals following NRA
mobilization campaigns. This is true in the aftermaths of Columbine and Sandy Hook, which are
displayed in Figures 8 and 12 in Chapter 5. The case study of Virginia Tech provided surprising
results; though the shooting was similar to Columbine and Sandy Hook in the amount of media
and public attention it garnered, there was no noticeable spike in anti-gun bill proposals in the
aftermath, unlike both Columbine and Sandy Hook. This finding was explored further in Chapter
6 while examining the case study of Virginia Tech.
Finally, the third finding from the quantitative research was illustrated by the regression
analysis. The linear regressions conducted did not yield conclusive results in support of the
hypothesis advanced in this study. No clear correlation between an increase in NRA spending
and a decrease in anti-gun bill proposals was observed. However, this lack of consistent results is
in itself an interesting result. A common presumption is that the NRA derives its power by
buying politicians. However, the lack of a relationship between increased levels of NRA
spending and the number of anti-gun bills proposed in Congress seems to suggest that perhaps
monetary spending is a weaker mode of NRA influence than commonly thought.
The findings in the qualitative case studies of Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook
in Chapter 6 largely support the quantitative findings in Chapter 5. For instance, following
Columbine, Congress responded to intense public pressure for gun control restrictions by
proposing an abundance of anti-gun bills. However, the NRA also responded to this legislative
activity by mobilizing its membership against gun control legislation in the House. The
legislation ultimately passed the House, but not before the gun control provisions had been
129
removed. Following this NRA mobilization campaign, the rate of bill proposal still remained
relatively high, but was significantly lower than the rate of bill proposal prior to the NRA
mobilization campaign.
The case study of Virginia Tech also yielded compelling results. Though the shooting at
Virginia Tech was the worst mass shooting in U.S. history at the time, lawmakers in Congress
did not significantly increase proposals of anti-gun legislation in the aftermath of the shooting.
Consequently, the NRA did not launch a significant mobilization campaign; no significant threat
to gun ownership was being considered in Congress. Democrats in Congress had begun to see
gun control as a losing issue for their party, and because of this, they did not prioritize the pursuit
of increased gun regulation even in the wake of the tragedy at Virginia Tech. As discussed in
Chapter 5, pro- and anti-gun bill proposal rates remained average throughout the years directly
following Virginia Tech. The results of this case study suggest an important consideration about
NRA power: the organization only mobilizes when it faces significant threats. Because anti-gun
bill proposals remained low and even slightly decreased following Virginia Tech, the
organization had no need to rapidly increase spending and devote resources to member outreach.
The case study of Sandy Hook provided further evidence of the NRA’s mobilization
strategy and the effect of NRA mobilization on the legislative process. Following the shooting in
December 2012, newly re-elected President Obama made gun control a chief legislative priority
for his administration, and Congress responded with a significant increase in anti-gun bill
proposals. As a result, the NRA launched an aggressive mobilization campaign against one
particular piece of legislation: the Manchin-Toomey background checks bill. This piece of
legislation ultimately failed in the Senate, largely due to the NRA’s membership base contacting
130
Congress in large numbers via letters, phone calls, and emails. In the months following this
legislative failure, anti-gun bill proposals fell rapidly back to average levels.
Taken together, the quantitative and qualitative evidence in this study demonstrates a
pattern that has proven relatively consistent over time. When Congress has shown a willingness
to pursue gun control legislation by proposing more anti-gun bills than average – typically in
response to a mass shooting incident – the NRA has often launched a mobilization campaign
against such legislative initiatives. These mobilization campaigns include modes of influence
that are not as easily measured as campaign contributions, lobbying, and advertising. Rather, the
chief mode of influence used by the NRA is member mobilization, which is generally used to
oppose a salient piece of gun control legislation that stands a significant chance of becoming law.
The findings in this study suggest a number of key conclusions regarding the NRA. First,
Chapter 5 provides evidence that NRA spending on various modes of influence, such as
campaign contributions, lobbying, and advertising, are not as powerful as commonly thought
regarding their influence on the proposal of gun-related legislation in Congress. Second, the
NRA’s strength as a special interest group lies in its ability to mobilize its membership base and
the resulting culture of electoral fear in Congress that has been generated by this particular mode
of influence. The historical analysis in Chapter 3 provides evidence of the formation of this
culture of electoral fear throughout the NRA’s history, which has been expanded and solidified
by mobilization campaigns following recent mass shootings, such as Columbine and Sandy
Hook. Finally, the NRA’s consistent weakening and defeat of gun control legislation through its
mobilization campaigns in the aftermath of mass shootings and the resulting culture of electoral
fear has helped to keep gun control legislation off the legislative agenda in Congress.
131
This study also presents several key conclusions about special interest group power in
American politics. First, the qualitative research into NRA mobilization campaigns has shown
that the cultivation of a large membership base of grassroots supporters can prove to be a potent
political force. If such a membership base is actively mobilized to contact legislators to advance
the position of the special interest group, legislators will often pay attention to the concerns of
the group. In addition, examination of the culture of the NRA illustrates that by framing gun
rights as an essential American value, the NRA has embedded itself in the social structure of
American society. For this reason, as Cobb and Elder (1971) argue in their theory of differential
responsiveness, legislators have a difficult time ignoring the organization’s positions.211 Finally,
this study has adopted an innovative methodology by studying bill proposals in Congress as a
way of measuring the agenda setting influence of special interest groups. Future research into
other special interest groups could employ this same methodology.
While this study produced several key insights about the NRA and special interest group
power, it was also limited in a number of ways. As stated in Chapter 5, one such limiting factor
was the availability of data on the independent variables, specifically lobbying and advertising
expenditures. Lobbying data was measured yearly and monthly advertising data was only
available for a six-year span. Locating lobbying data that is broken down into smaller units of
time would allow for more precise statistical results, as would finding advertising data over a
longer time span. Further, it is important to acknowledge that while this study produced insights
about the NRA’s power in Congress, it completely neglected another key element of the NRA’s
influence in American politics: state legislatures. The NRA maintains a forceful lobbying
211
Roger W. Cobb and Charles D. Elder, “The Politics of Agenda-Building: An Alternative Perspective
for Modern Democratic Theory,” The Journal of Politics 33, no. 4 (1971): 892–915,
https://doi.org/10.2307/2128415.
132
presence in state legislatures across the country, and it is impossible to gain a full understanding
of the organization’s power without examining its influence on the legislative processes of states.
However, the limitations of this study could serve as a catalyst for future research into the
NRA. For instance, future research could examine additional high profile mass shootings and
assess the responses of the NRA and Congress in the aftermath of the shooting. In addition, a
future study could extend this study’s scope to encompass a time span beyond 1991-2018. Both
of these avenues for future research could further assess how NRA mobilization over time has
shaped the proposal of gun-related legislation. Moreover, future research could quantitatively
examine the relationship between bill proposals in Congress and other modes of NRA influence,
such as spending on mobilization efforts (i.e. magazine publication, member mailings, etc.) or
the quantity of advertisements purchased, rather than the money spent on them.
Though this study has provided evidence of the NRA’s success in keeping gun control
legislation off the Congressional agenda as a result of their mobilization campaigns, there is
reason to believe that the nature of the gun control debate in Congress is beginning to change.
Gun control lobbying groups such as Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action are
cultivating ever-growing coalitions of grassroots supporters and are growing in strength and
prominence. In addition, gun control continues to be a major issue in the 2020 election cycle. It
remains to be seen what effect a strengthened gun control lobby supported by extensive
donations, a grassroots base of volunteers, and more active mobilization efforts can have on the
proposal of gun control legislation in Congress. As the United States continues to wrestle with its
gun violence epidemic in 2020, perhaps the growing strength of gun control special interest
groups and activists will serve to check the NRA’s power over the legislative agenda in Congress
in the years to come.

133
Glossary of Key Concepts
Chapter 1
● Modes of influence: the various mechanisms that special interest groups use to influence
the behavior of legislators. Examples include campaign contributions, advertising, and
contacting and mobilizing the membership base of the special interest group.
● Legislative influence: A special interest group’s effectiveness at using its resources to

achieve legislative outcomes in Congress that are in line with its policy preferences.
● Electoral influence: A special interest group’s effectiveness at using its resources to get
favored candidates elected during each election.
Chapter 2
● Access responsiveness: the extent to which legislators are willing to hear the concerns of
a particular interest group.
● Agenda responsiveness: the willingness of legislators to place an issue item on the

political agenda via proposing and voting on a bill that addresses the issue.
● Policy responsiveness: the degree to which legislators adopt legislation or policy that is
congruent with the demands of the protest group.
● Differential responsiveness: the differing levels of attention that legislators give to a

special interest group’s concerns.
● Agenda setting: the process by which issues are chosen to be pursued on the legislative
agenda through the proposal of legislation in Congress.
● Direct Lobbying: professional lobbyists working for special interest groups interact with
members of Congress directly to communicate the policy preferences of their special
interest group.
● Social Lobbying: when special interest groups contact and mobilize citizens to contact
their representatives and senators in order to express opinions on an issue that are in line
with the special interest group’s policy preferences.
Chapter 3
● National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA): the first federal gun control law, which levied a
$200 tax on the manufacture or sale of machines and sawed-off shotguns. In addition, the
NFA mandated that all sales of these weapons be recorded in a national registry.
134
● Federal Firearms Act of 1938 (FFA): required the licensing of interstate gun dealers
and mandated that these dealers record their sales.
● Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act: passed in 1993, this law made background
checks a requirement for all gun purchases from federally licensed gun dealers.
● Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994: this law amended the criminal code to “prohibit
the manufacture, transfer, or possession of a semiautomatic assault weapon."
Chapter 4
● Electoral fear: legislators’ fear of losing support among constituents as well as losing
the next election as a result of not acting in accordance with the wishes of interest groups.
● Negative Lobbying: lobbying against a particular legislative proposal.
● Signaling: an interest group-sponsored process of alerting a legislator that attentive

citizens in her state or district hold views consistent with the views of the interest group.
This process usually includes the interest group appealing to citizens to contact a
congressional office through phone calls, mail, or emails.
● Dependent variable: The dependent variable in the quantitative analysis in this study is
the number of pro-gun and anti-gun bills proposed in each Congress between the 102nd
Congress (1991-1992) and the 115th Congress (2017-2018).
● Independent variable(s): there are three independent variables in the quantitative

analysis in this study. These are NRA campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures,
and advertising expenditures.
● Nested Analysis: a mixed-method research design that combines Large N and Small N
analysis in a complementary fashion.
● Large N Analysis (LNA): quantitative examination of a large number of cases. In this

project, the cases examined in the LNA are all the gun-related bills proposed in Congress
between the 102nd and 115th Congresses.
● Small N Analysis (SNA): qualitative examination of a small number of cases that goes
far more in depth than the LNA. In this study, three case study analyses comprise the
SNA: Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook.

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Guns and Gridlock: Examining the NRA’s Legislative

List of Figures and Tables………………………………………………………….....……....p. 4

Chapter 2: Special Interest Groups, the Congressional Process,

Chapter 3: The National Rifle Association…………………………………………………p. 28

Chapter 4: Theory, Research Design, and Methodology………………………………….p. 50

Chapter 5: Quantitative Results…………………………………………………………….p. 69

Chapter 6: Case Studies: Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook………………….p. 96

Chapter 7: Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...p. 130

Glossary of Key Concepts………………………………………………………………….p. 137

List of Figures and Tables

Figure 1, Chap. 4: Congress.gov Search Tool…………………………………………………p.

Table 1, Chap. 4: Summary of Hypotheses…………………………………………………….p.

Table 2, Chap. 4: Pro-Gun Bill Definitions………………………………….…………………p.

NRA preferences to avoid receiving a bad grade.

prevailed in its efforts to block anti-gun legislation once again.

includes whether a bill is proposed in the first place.

influence on bill proposals in Congress.

NRA membership mobilization in the aftermath of mass shootings.

and the legislative process.

and the hypothesis being tested.

NRA campaign contributions, lobbying spending, and advertising spending.

the NRA, and gun policymaking in Congress.

Lobbyists, and the Role of the NRA.

Special Interest Groups

essential to developing a more complete understanding of the NRA.

influence in the U.S. Congress.

There is no universally agreed-upon definition of special interest groups in political

According to the NRA’s website, it is “America’s longest-standing civil rights

threatens to implement gun regulations if elected to office.

responsiveness, (2) agenda responsiveness, and (3) policy responsiveness.12 Access

Schumaker’s second type of responsiveness, agenda responsiveness, is defined as the

what will be quantitatively examined in later chapters.

Finally, Schumaker’s notion of policy responsiveness is defined as the degree to which

mobilizing against them in the next election.

this process will be discussed.

The Congressional Process, Lobbyists, and the Role of the NRA

attempt to exert their influence at each stage of this lawmaking process.

eventually becoming law.

Partisan theory is supported by the interview conducted with the Democratic

“Getting something through committee is difficult – the committees have broad

unanimous-consent requests, and non-germane amendments.27 Of these options, the filibuster is a

modifying, or defeating legislation.28 In addition, the tool of non-germane amendments allows

With knowledge of the procedural obstacles to the passage of legislation in mind, it is

characteristics of that process. This understanding will provide an additional theoretical

framework for understanding the power of special interest groups in Congress.

out to communities and voters to discern issues).

and history with gun violence.

lobbyists that work for them.

It is important to note several key lobbying practices employed by interest groups.

advocacy as prominent lobbying practices.34 Of these commonly-used general practices, the

strategies to convey its message to members of Congress.

inaccurate. The legislator-lobbyist connection is a much more collaborative process in practice.

Because of the interconnection between legislators and lobbyists in Congress, special

throughout the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s.43

prominent interest group in American politics.

The National Rifle Association

main lobbying strategies.

Overview of the National Rifle Association

its power today.

support of Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt.48 By establishing this organization,

leadership and the preferences of the NRA and its members.

successful at weakening provisions of the legislation prior to its passage.52

legislation prior to passage.