Everyone knows the NRA. Who's on the other side? These groups lobby for curbs on firearms

Their leaders have been shot in the head, had their parents killed in a hail of gunfire, and lost young children in a bloody massacre. Their friends were slain in high school hallways.

Now, they are under the gun once again, drawn to the national spotlight by a cluster of rampages that have left 35 dead, countless others maimed and triggered calls once again for federal restrictions on guns.

They are the advocacy groups who have taken on the National Rifle Association for years and lost.

Their entreaties have been drowned out by the multimillion-dollar force of gun rights lobbyists and they are still outspent.

Gun rights advocacy groups forked out a record $15.8 million last year, according to watchdog organization Open Secrets, while advocates for tougher restrictions on guns spent a fraction of that amount in 2021 at $2.9 million.

The NRA and other gun rights industry powerhouses have invested nearly $200 million in federal lobbying since 1998. Gun control lobbyists, $28 million.

Organizations pushing for restrictions on guns face not only financial barriers, they also struggle to create a sense of identity around their cause comparative to gun rights groups, according to Matthew Lacombe, political science professor at Barnard College and author of Firepower: How the NRA Turned Gun Owners into a Political Force.

“It can be done, I think, but it is really difficult,” Lacombe said. “It is really difficult because it's not like a group membership that exists independently of politics.”

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During the past decade, gun-control advocacy groups have sought to link the cause to the identity of being a parent, student or school employee concerned about child safety.

“Rather than creating a distinct identity related to support for gun control, they've tried to link that issue position, they've tried to link that cause to other identities that people hold, and that are important to them,” Lacombe said. “What that has looked like over the past 10 years or so has been connecting it to basically the protection of children.”

Matt Grossmann, a political scientist at Michigan State University and specialist on interest groups and policy change, said that groups advocating for curbs on guns do not have an NRA on their side.

“There's not an organization of equal public renown or policymaking influence,” he said.

But he said they have notched successes on the state level. After a shooter killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018, the state tightened gun restrictions, raising the minimum age to purchase a firearm to 21 from 18.

Josh Horwitz, co-director of Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said gun control advocates should concentrate resources at the state level. The lobbies have seen success in traditionally pro-gun states like Virginia, Colorado and New Mexico, for instance, where organization efforts resulted in lawmakers who support gun violence prevention filling the legislatures.

"At the federal level, I don't see (lobbying) as a matter of resources, I see it as a matter of organizing in a couple more states. And I also see as a matter of the way the filibuster is set up, unfortunately," Horwitz said of the 60 vote requirement to advance legislation in the Senate.

The House Judiciary Committee held an emergency meeting Thursday to consider a comprehensive package of gun violence prevention bills known as the “Protecting Our Kids Act.” And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called for action at a Wednesday gun safety event in San Francisco.

"I say to the members of Congress – in the House, I'm very proud, we've passed our bills," Pelosi said. "I say to the Senators: your political survival ... is (not) more important than the personal survivor of America's children and their families..."

President Joe Biden will also give a remarks Thursday, urging Congress to act on gun control.

The statements from leaders lend momentum to actions on the part of gun safety advocates, like the planned June 11 march in Washington organized by March for our Lives, the gun safety lobby created by survivors of the Parkland shooting. Here's background on the group and other major gun control advocacy organizations.

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March for Our Lives

March for Our Lives' 28 founders started the nonprofit gun safety, education and voter registration group after the Parkland shooting left 17 people dead and 17 wounded. Some founders are Parkland survivors. The staff is 75% Gen Z.

Daud Mumin and Vernetta Walker are the group's co-chairs, and 19 youth activists also make up March for Our Lives' Youth Congress. MFOL has hundreds of student-led chapters nationwide.

The group focuses on grassroots organizing at the local and state level. Its four-point policy agenda addresses forces fueling gun violence, accountability for the gun lobbies and gun industry, state violence and investing in safety and raising standards of gun ownership.

Soon after leading the largest single-day protest against gun violence in Washington in March 2018, MFOL launched the Road to Change, touring the country to meet with gun violence survivors and their families. The tour informed the groups' advocacy going forward.

In 2021, MFOL spent $120,000 in gun control lobbying, according to Open Secrets. The group sought to influence the For the People Act, the Biden-Harris administration Executive Order on Empowering and Advancing Young Americans through the Federal Government and the Vote Without Fear Act, according to Senate lobbying disclosures.

MFOL is also a hosts voter registration events. The group registered over 50,000 new voters while touring the country, according to its website. Grassroots efforts resulted in a historic 47% increase in youth voters in 2018 over the prior midterm election, during which 46 NRA-backed candidates lost their elections, according to the group.

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Everytown for Gun Safety

Everytown for Gun Safety is the biggest spender on lobbying among groups advocating for curbs on guns. The organization was founded and bankrolled by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who said he wanted to provide a counterweight to the NRA.

Everytown was formed in 2013 by combining Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. Stay-at-home mother Shannon Watts had launched the Moms group after a gunman killed 26 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. Bloomberg had co-founded the mayors’ coalition in 2006 to help stem gun violence.

The organization says it has tapped the “best minds in research, policy, litigation, advocacy, and grassroots organizing to grow Everytown for Gun Safety into a movement of more than 8 million supporters.”

“We’re the largest gun violence prevention organization in America – and we’re winning,” the organization boasts.

In 2021, Everytown spent $1.7 million on federal lobbying – far short of the $4.9 million spent by the NRA but more than other gun-control advocacy group, according to Open Secrets. Lobbyists for Everytown said they were seeking to persuade lawmakers on “General issues around education and advocacy on firearms, specifically regarding background checks.”

Everytown also spends heavily on federal elections- contributions to candidates and groups running advertising to influence outcomes.

After the shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo, New York, where 10 shoppers were gunned down at a supermarket, Bloomberg issued a statement urging people to reach out to their elected representatives.

“Any elected official who says the only needed response is to arm more people is dangerously wrong, cowardly beholden to the gun lobby, unable to perform the most elemental public duty — protecting people’s lives — and unworthy of your vote,” he said. “The safety of every community is on the line. Elected officials need to know their jobs are, too.”

Giffords

Giffords is named for former Democratic Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, who survived a gunshot wound to the head on January 8, 2011, at a constituent event in Tuscon. The gunmen killed six people and injured 12 others.

Giffords co-founded the organization in 2013 with husband, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Under its political action committee Giffords PAC, the group backs gun control candidates running for local, state and federal races and advocates for gun control legislation on the state and national levels.

The organization endorses 64 candidates in elections this year, and Giffords PAC spent over $11.1 million during the 2019-2020 election cycle, according to Open Secrets.

Aside from its primary advocacy arm, Giffords also has a law center that writes, enacts and defends gun safety policy.

Giffords was among the gun control advocates that helped establish a gun safety majority in the House in 2018 and flipped the Virginia General Assembly to majority Democrat in 2019.

The organization spent $500,000 on gun control lobbying in 2021, according to Open Secrets. A Senate lobbying disclosure report shows Giffords spent $80,000 in the first quarter of 2022 on over 40 issues, programs and bills.

Gabby Giffords and colleagues released a statement on May 24 following the Uvalde shooting: "How many more children will be killed by guns? How many young lives cut short, families shattered, communities traumatized because our leaders refuse to act on gun violence?" she wrote. "I won’t rest until children can go to school without fearing for their lives. Our elected leaders must have the same resolve. Enough is enough.”

Sandy Hook Promise

Sandy Hook Promise was founded by family members of victims of the shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman killed 20 students and six teachers.

Nicole Hockley, whose 6-year-old-son Dylan was slain, and Mark Barden, whose 7-year-old son Daniel was killed, co-founded and lead the group.

“The mission of Sandy Hook Promise is to end school shootings and create a culture change that prevents violence and other harmful acts that hurt children,” the organization says.

Through its political action fund, the group says it is dedicated to advancing federal and state legislation through “grassroots engagement and mobilization that promotes gun safety, youth mental health, and violence prevention training.”

The push for federal legislation after the Sandy Hook shootings went further than any such effort in nearly 20 years. Measures that would have banned the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and expanded background checks were voted down in the Senate, one by only six votes.

“Isn't that a shame that here we are pretty much in the same place,” Barden told USA TODAY in an interview Thursday. “If you're looking at this from a policy perspective on federal engagement, we haven't really gone anywhere since then.”

Sandy Hook Promise and its affiliates spent roughly $450,000 on lobbying at the federal level in 2021, according to Open Secrets. That’s more than three times what it usually spends each year.

Lobbying reports show the group sought to influence legislation last year enhancing background check requirements for gun buyers and providing grants to help states implement red flag laws that can prevent at-risk individuals from buying or having guns.

After the shooting in Uvalde, Hockley and Barden said in a joint statement they were “haunted by the shocking similarities to the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy."

“We are sickened under the weight of our sadness as we watch another community of families suffering their worst nightmare,” they said. They implored others to “Take your heartache, your fear, your anger and sadness, and channel them into action… Call on your elected officials to pass commonsense legislation now that protects the safety and lives of children.

“This can be done while upholding second amendment rights,” Hockley and Barden said. “Now is the time to take bold action; as a country, how much longer can we stand by while innocent children continue to be killed?”

Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence bills itself as the “oldest and boldest” such group. The organization was founded by an armed robbery victim in 1974 and was later named for James Brady, a press secretary for President Ronald Reagan who was shot in the head during the attempted assassination of Reagan in 1981.

Brady, who survived but was paralyzed, and his wife, Sarah, led the charge for gun control in the ensuing years and notched a significant legislative victory in 1993 when President Bill Clinton signed the Brady Handgun Violence and Prevention Act. The law requires background checks on gun buyers at federally licensed firearm dealers. It was the last time significant gun restrictions passed into law at the federal level.

The Brady Campaign has spent sporadically on federal lobbying over the years, averaging less than $200,000 annually since 2013, according to Open Secrets. In 2021, the campaign spent $128,000, and was lobbying for 60-odd bills in the House and Senate, reports show. They included measures to ban assault weapons, expand background checks for gun buyers, and to require guns be securely stored around children.

Christian Heyne, vice president of policy at Brady, said it’s not always about having the most money or spending more than the NRA when it comes to lobbying.

“I think that there is a quality over quantity that has had the impact that we've seen,” Heyne said, adding lawmakers have been persuaded in recent years, albeit not enough of them “We still have a final threshold we have to push through in the US Senate.”

Heyne, whose mother was killed and father injured by gun violence in 2005, said Brady is working in the courts, communities and Congress to “affect the broad change that we need to see just as we have been for decades to ensure that we're doing everything we can to address gun violence and all of its forms.”

After the mass shooting in Uvalde, Brady’s president Kris Brown called it a “horrific and shameful day in our nation’s history."

"No parent should have to bury a child because of gun violence, but in our nation every parent worries about their kids when they hug them and send them to school each day," she said. "There is no American who wants this reality. But, there are groups and politicians who will not act to prevent it. The murder of these children and teachers are on their hands."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: These gun control advocacy groups lobby for curbs on firearms