Today the Senate failed to pass gun control legislation yet again — despite four proposed amendments and even the National Rifle Association publicly supporting one of the amendments.
It’s become an all-too-predictable and devastating pattern: first, a tragic mass shooting with countless lives lost, then an impassioned call for gun reform, and finally, a failure to compromise and pass gun control legislation in Congress.
Congress failed to pass gun control legislation after the shooting in San Bernardino that killed 14 and wounded 21 more last December. And it failed to pass reform after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that killed 20 children and six teachers in 2012. And today, a little more than a week after the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, where 49 people were killed in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the outcome was still the same — no gun reform legislation passed.
This is in large part because of the extreme polarization surrounding gun policy in the Senate. The NRA awarded 56 senators an A grade for their stance on gun rights — and 36 senators an F.
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Only 11 senators fall somewhere in between, with scores ranging anywhere from a B+ to a D-. And today, the 60 needed votes to invoke cloture (as is customary in the case of a filibuster) fell along familiar party lines, with not enough senators crossing the aisle to support any of the four bills proposed.
For more details on the final vote tallies and what each amendment tried to do, check our longer explainer here.
Here’s what gun rights groups donated to your Senators as of 2016
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, in 2016 gun rights groups have contributed nearly $1 million to the Senate — $311,569 of which was money given to members’ campaigns or leadership PACs from gun rights PACs or individuals in the 2014 election cycle and $615,971 of which was money spent by gun rights groups on independent expenditures supporting candidates.
Below is an interactive table that shows what gun rights groups like the NRA and Gun Owners of America have contributed to your senators as of June 13, 2016.
