Party Dynamics, Congressional Bills, and Gun Legislation, 1947-2020

• In Event: The Dynamics and Outcomes of Policy Learning

Abstract

Few issues illustrate elite political polarization as starkly as gun control. Despite persistently high rates of firearms deaths in the U.S. and consistent, cross-party support for more regulation, the modest Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (2023) was the first national bill to limit gun access in thirty years. Despite its name and modest scope, most Republicans opposed it in both chambers. Scholars and pundits regularly offer explanations for the challenges to enacting national gun regulations by pointing to the preference intensity of gun rights advocates, the organizational strength of the gun rights lobby, and the many veto points of the American political system. Over the past few decades, party polarization in Congress has only exacerbated these challenges.

On the surface, this is consistent with a range of social policy issues that have become mired in partisan gridlock in Congress. But Republican lawmakers and advocacy groups have not just resisted new gun regulations. Our preliminary analysis shows that beginning in the late 1980s, compared to their Democratic counterparts, Republicans began to sponsor more bills aimed at deregulation, including rolling back existing national firearms legislation and restricting state gun control options. Undeterred by mass shootings, homicide rates, firearms suicides, and mass public support for curtailing access to firearms, a portion of congressional lawmakers began proposing that the solution to America’s gun violence problem is more access to firearms, not less.

What led Republicans in Congress to increase their sponsorship of bills to roll back existing gun regulations and limit state gun regulatory power? Who were the initial sponsors of these de-regulatory bills, and how broad do the deregulatory sponsorships become within the party over time? We anticipate that initial efforts in this direction were driven by several factors, including the passage of a major gun control bill in 1968, growing Democratic demand for more gun regulations in the late 1970s and 80s as a crime prevention measure, and the conservative anti-regulatory and racial backlash. Later, the 1994 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act accelerates this process. But we are also interested in the early adopters. What particular combination of party, constituency, and interest group pressures led to the initial surge in deregulatory bills?

We leverage an original comprehensive dataset encompassing over 4500 gun-related bills introduced between 1947 and 2020 from the Policy Agendas Project, as well as state-level estimates of firearm sales, congressional district-level firearm suicide rate, DW-nominate scores, NRA endorsements, and campaign finance data to test how changing intra-party dynamics, demographic shifts, and economic pressures have shaped the agenda of Republican legislators in federal gun control policy. We anticipate that our analysis will not only shed light on the challenges of regulatory gun policies in the United States but can also lead to a better understanding of how party polarization develops on a high-profile issue that invokes multiple cleavages in American politics.

Authors

• Lisa L. Miller, Rutgers University, New Brunswick

• Rebekah Jones, University of California, Berkeley