After the Democrats’ huge wins in the US midterm elections last week, gun rights advocates are updating their strategies in an attempt to cross the aisle and find allies on the left.
While most of the biggest and most visible gun rights groups,such as the National Rifle Association (NRA), are already signaling that they will challenge any gun safety legislation brought by the new Democratic Congress, others say it no longer makes sense for their movement to be so deeply intertwined with the Republican party.
“Leaders in gun rights organizations for the most part don’t believe it’ll ever happen, but a few recognize that because of the shift in voting patterns toward the left, it will be important to work with gun owners who vote Democrat,” said Rob Pincus, executive vice-president of the Second Amendment Organization, a non-profit that advocates for gun rights and offers firearms training.
Pincus has worked in the gun industry for more than 30 years, and for the last 10, he’s been floating the idea that the movement needs to spend less time supporting Republicans – who already support looser gun laws – and instead court Democrats and convince them to remove gun control as a central piece of the party’s agenda.
“This midterm presents an opportunity to take that message, which hasn’t been received well by the loudest voices in the gun community, and take it out for another try,” he said.
While it might sound far-fetched, gun ownership has increased among people on the left, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community, creating fertile ground for second amendment advocates to reach out to younger Democrats in all parts of the US.
It’s a major departure from previous decades, during which the nation’s biggest gun rights groups have been intertwined with the broader conservative movement. The NRA, for example, first got involved in politics in the 1970s, then upped its involvement after Congress passed the 1994 assault weapons ban, and again when Donald Trump ran for president in 2016. The organization became so involved in rightwing politics that it’s now seen less as a gun rights group and more as an extension of the Republican party itself.
“Being a card-carrying member of the NRA often means more than that you just like guns,” said Stephen Gutowski, a firearm trainer and founder of the Reload, an online outlet that covers gun policy. “It feels like most people who support gun rights are rightwing and have a bunch of other political or cultural beliefs that come packaged together, like support for strict immigration enforcement.”
But this entrenchment with the Republican party has also alienated people who may want less stringent gun laws – but are put off by the association with Donald Trump.
“My impression is that no one is clocking this as a significant sea change moment in the gun fight,” Gutowski said.
Not only are the demographics of gun owners evolving, but so too is the financial influence of gun rights groups in national politics. “It used to be, not that long ago, that the NRA was out-fundraising and outspending the gun control groups, but they’ve been falling off the last couple of cycles,” Gutowski said.
But since 2018, gun violence prevention groups like Everytown for Gun Safety and the Giffords Law Center have poured more money into elections than the NRA, which used to outspend them handily, according to an analysis of campaign spending by the Trace.
Now, at least one-third of US adults live in a home with one or more guns, according to the Pew Research Center. And an increasing number of them don’t share conservative views on issues like abortion, immigration and policing – but they do want to see fewer restrictions on guns and accessories, Pincus said.
This changing tide, he says, should be a sign that it’s time to detangle gun rights from traditional American conservatism and find liberal bedfellows.
“They need to get out of the culture war business,” Pincus said of gun rights groups. “It’s foolish to pretend that 100 million gun owners are only going to vote for Republicans.”
