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Gun Politics & Policy

Guide for finding data and research related to the politics of guns

Understanding Lobbying & Political Spending

Political Spending & the NRA (Follow the Money)
February 2018 overview of political spending by the National Rifle Association.

Breaks down into two categories:
• Direct spending to political parties and campaigns
• Independent spending to support/oppose candidates

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Discusses data limitations and challenges in tracking independent spending consistently across US states.
The lobbyist behind Florida's gun policies (New Yorker)
Recent article about lobbyist Marion Hammer

Research Tools: Lobbying, Spending, and Influence

OpenSecrets: Industries, Lobbying, and Influence
Key tool for doing research on industries and organizations that aim to influence public policy. Provides profiles of major interest groups, campaign contributions, and lobbying trends and clients from across the political spectrum.

Two recent reports include Gun Rights and Gun Control.

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• Campaign contributions from more than 100 interest groups
• Spending on lobbying Congressional representatives and other officials (by industries, companies, unions and issue groups)
• PACs and 527s: spending, connections to business and organizations

Follow the Money
Excellent source for data on federal, state, and local campaign contributions, lobbying and political spending. Pulls together data from multiple sources.

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Follow the Money is run by a non-profit organization. Learn more about their funding here.

Includes the following candidates and elections:
• State offices, including courts (2000-present)
• Local offices (2006-present)
• Ballot measures (2000-present)
• President, Senate, and House of Representatives (2010-present)

LittleSis
Valuable tool for tracking the key relationships of politicians, business leaders, lobbyists, financiers, advocacy organizations, and other affiliated institutions. Maintained by the Non-profit Public Accountability Initiative, LittleSis brings together data from SEC, the Senate Lobbying database, and several other key sources.

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• Data about members of Congress come from the Congressional Biographical Directory, GovTrack.us, and Project Vote Smart.
• Political contribution information is from Open Secrets.
• Corporate board and executive information comes from the Form 4 and 10-K filings of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
• Lobbying data is from the US Senate's Lobbying Disclosure Act database.
• Government contract data from the Federal Procurement Data System, by way of OMBWatch's FedSpending.org.

Research Tools: Industry & Company Information

Company Info

Eikon / Workspace
Provides extensive data on companies and economic conditions; includes US and global data, public and private companies, current and historical coverage.

* Best option for learning about privately-held companies
• Search for a company across major news sources and industry analyst reports
Nexis Uni
Includes company profiles, offers the ability to search across news and legal materials (Formerly LexisNexis)

Firearm Tracing & Gun Manufacturing Data (ATF)
Data available from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, including:

• Gun manufacturing and export
• Firearms trace data (national, state, international)
Transparency Barometer (Small Arms Survey)
Evaluates the usefulness of small arms export reports from various countries

Industry Info

First Research
Allows users to easily understand the challenges, opportunities, and operations of more than 600 Industry Segments.
Statista: The Leading Statistics Portal
Provides access to selected statistics and studies of over 600 industries gathered by market researchers, trade organizations, scientific publications, and government sources from 2007 to the present.
Users are explicitly prohibited from using Statista content with any third-party generative AI tools. This would create a competing product or service, disrupt Statista’s functionality, and share content to third parties. Unauthorized use may result in access restrictions.

Illegal Arms Trade

Behind the curtain: The illicit trade of firearms, explosives and ammunition on the dark web (RAND)
2017 research report from RAND examining the use of digital platforms for illegal arms trade