Relationship Between Gun Control And Political Parties

Political Parties and Voter Relationship on Gun Control For any political party to have success in today’s competitive world, they must gain support through voters. Political parties spend thousands of dollars to reach out and receive the votes that they need and endorsements from groups of people. Essentially, political parties attempt to target certain groups of people to gain support. As one may assume political parties try and target groups of people that reflect their own ideological beliefs. For example, The Republican Party usually target individuals that are more conservative in nature. Likewise, the Green Party targets environmentalist and often more liberal individuals. Gun control is no exception to this considering its importance …show more content…
The Republican Party’s ideological beliefs on gun control are, as one would imagine, conservative. The conservative perspective pushes the Republican party to support gun rights of the American citizen. According to Pew Research Center, 72% of people with conservative ideologies support ownership of guns in America (Nekola, 2017). The Republican Party appeals to this 72% just based off their party stance on gun control. The Republican party involvement has been limited in these groups, however their involvement in the National Rifle Association (NRA) is well known. The NRA is an association that lobbies for citizens 2nd Amendment rights. The Republican Party is encouraged to interact and support the NRA because of the contributions they contribute to the party’s pocket book. In fact, in 2016, the NRA contributed 1.1 million dollars to the Republican Party compared to the 10.6 thousand they gave to the Democratic party (Responsive Politics, n.d.). The donations by the NRA to the Republican Party are a significant reason why the Republican Party supports NRA lobbying efforts in Washington. Since the NRA contributes a considerable about of money to the Republican Party, the NRA identifies with the Republican Party. The Republican Party and the NRA share similar ideologies over gun control, however other political parties despise the NRA and the Republican Parties stance on gun …show more content…
The Green Party believes in the right to bear arms with stipulations. For instants, in depth background checks. It is because of this stance that the Green Party usually targets moderate to left leaning liberals on gun control. The Green Party does not coincide with the NRA. While the NRA wishes to reduce the amount of restrictions on the guns, the Green Party wishes to enforce more restrictions on guns. The Green Party’s presidential candidate for the 2016 election said this about the NRA, “People don’t trust government because government has been bought and paid for by powerful special interests like the NRA” (Ballotpedia). Therefore, instead of the Green Party targeting voters that have a more liberal opinion on gun control. Consider that that Green Party tends to attract more moderate and liberal ideologies. Taking this into account, liberals and moderates tend to support enforcement of gun control. According to Pew Research Center, 79% of people identifying as liberal were in support of gun control and 56% of people identifying as moderate supported gun control (Nekola et al., 2017). Considering the Green Party’s stance, it is safe to assume that the Green Party will push to gain these voters in the election by presenting their stance on gun