NRA donations triple after gun control push sparked by Parkland shooting

Federal Election Commission filings for February show that the gun rights group saw a serious boost in donations to its political victory fund.

The group reported $247,984 in individual contributions was received in January. In February, the same month that saw widespread calls for gun restrictions in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the group reported taking in $779,062.

The Center for Responsive Politics noted the most of the donations recorded in February came in the two weeks immediately following the Valentine’s Day shooting.

When stacked against the past year’s worth of filings, February’s figures were the highest single month reported by the pro-gun group in the past 11 months and were more than they received in the entire last quarter of 2017 combined. Likewise, the NRA has been observed to have aggressively expanded their online ad campaign post-Parkland.

The smaller Gun Owners of America organization also saw donations to their Political Victory Fund also increase, from $575 in January to $5,160 in February.

It’s not just their wallets Second Amendment supporters are reaching for, as gun rights member organizations have reported swelling ranks in recent weeks. One group, the Washington-based Second Amendment Foundation, said numbers among the 18-to-20 age demographic have expanded 1,200 percent following persistent calls to raise the minimum age for all firearms sales to 21.

On the other end of the political spectrum, gun control group Everytown’s FEC March filing, covering February, showed $21,972 in individual donations, which is a jump when stacked against previous reports. The group, morphed from former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns, reported no contributions in January and $11,586 in the last half of 2017.