Pro-gun groups spend big in elections after school shootings, researchers find

Since 1999, over 420 school shootings have occurred in the United States, exposing more than 390,000 students to gun violence. From Sandy Hook to Uvalde, in the aftermath of each tragedy come familiar rituals of prayers and calls for reform. Yet, Congress has stalled on significant gun safety reform for decades.

A recent study by researchers at Stanford Law School (SLS) investigated why this gap between public concern and federal action persists, despite broad popular support for gun safety reforms. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, claimed that political spending from gun policy groups might explain this trend.

“Politicians send hopes and prayers without actually doing anything. That is because there is money and money speaks,” said Eric Baldwin, one of the study’s co-authors and a postdoctoral fellow at SLS. 

By analyzing financial data from 2000 to 2024, Baldwin, and co-author Takuma Iwasaki, a third-year J.S.D. candidate, found that after school shootings, pro-gun groups increased contributions in competitive House districts by 2,820% if the shooting took place within two months before an election and roughly  31% if not close to an election. 

Iwasaki explained that “before a school shooting, campaign finance amounts are comparable between these districts, but after a fatal school shooting, there is a discernible difference in terms of contribution amounts.”

The two worked alongside SLS Professor John Donahue, a leading law and policy expert who has studied the inner workings of the gun lobby. 

Baldwin and Iwasaki noted that one of the study’s primary aims was to empirically demonstrate that the pro-gun lobby has prevented federal action on gun violence.

“It’s kind of like a policy insurance…a school shooting of any type, particularly fatal ones, triggers an almost deeply emotional kind of psychological response. And the gun lobby is actually aware of that,” Baldwin said.

Based on their findings, the researchers claimed that gun groups attempt to neutralize public outrage and keep pro-gun candidates in line with their ideological policy agenda.

“When people are really upset, they might start voting for that [pro-gun control] candidate… because now it’s hit home,” Baldwin explained, “And so [the gun lobby] wants to shore up their preferred candidate…so they’re flooding the district with money to help that candidate win.” 

The resulting situation is a lack of federal action on gun violence, according to the study’s authors. 

To Jaclyn Corin, co-founder and Executive Director of March for Our Lives, a leading gun safety advocacy group, the study’s results aren’t surprising.

“What this research shows is something that communities have felt for years,” she said. “Instead of responding to the grief and hard questions with accountability, the gun lobby tries to shut them down and, of course, respond with money.” 

In 2018, Corin was a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., when a shooter entered her school and began shooting freely at students, taking the lives of 17 peers and injuring another 17. She helped launch March for Our Lives in the aftermath of the deadly shooting. 

“I think it’s deeply troubling that there is a coordinated strategy to outlast public outrage … their spending is deeply intentional and manipulative,” Corin said.

Kylie Price ‘28 discussed her own experiences as a gun safety advocate, founding a chapter of Students Demand Action, a national gun safety group, at her high school. 

Describing the Saugus High School shooting in her hometown of Santa Clarita, California, Price said that “although [the school shooting] was something that was deeply traumatizing to my community collectively, there was not an adequate response…it was what we commonly see after a school shooting, sending thoughts and prayers.” 

To Price, the study’s findings reflect her own troubles advocating for solutions from the federal government. 

“I am exhausted…I spent six years doing gun violence prevention advocacy, and I don’t think I’ve seen much change,” she said. 

School safety advocate and former President of the National Association of Student Councils, Anjali Verma ‘29, also expressed her profound disappointment with the gun industry.

“It is absolutely heartbreaking,” she said. “When communities face devastating tragedies of this sort, the last thing that they need is to be treated as pawns in intensified political spending battles.” 

Verma noted that messaging from gun safety groups is breaking through. 

“The power of storytelling and public opinion is often underestimated,” she said, “Most Americans support bipartisan, common-sense gun safety reforms.” 

Polling from Gallup indicates that large majorities support gun safety reforms, with 92% of Americans favoring universal background checks and 79% supporting raising the minimum age for gun purchases to 21. 

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy wrote to The Daily that “The American people overwhelmingly support common sense reforms to our gun laws, and this study reminds us that the fight for gun safety cannot just happen at the national level.”

Murphy is widely recognized as the leading Democrat on gun violence prevention in the Senate, serving as the lead negotiator for the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022, the furthest-reaching federal gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years. 

“State and local representatives are key to holding the gun lobby accountable, and as long as groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA) are investing in local races and communities, we have to do the same,” Murphy wrote. 

He explained that this increased spending is evidence that the gun pro-gun lobby is falling apart.

“The fact that the gun lobby has resorted to pumping propaganda into communities traumatized by gun violence is a huge tell that they know they’re losing,” he wrote. 

The NRA and Gun Owners of America, a pro-gun group funded by gun manufacturers, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. 

“It is not about safety. It’s never been about safety for them. It’s always been about protecting their political power,” Corin said.

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