The Supreme Court's ruling last week to lift the ban of handguns in Washington, D.C., households is the first ever to determine that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to own guns. While the judicial branch took more than 200 years to rule on the issue, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has spent years developing a relationship with the legislative branch. For the past decade, the NRA has lobbied and contributed heavily to congressional candidates, mostly Republicans, on behalf of gun rights. In the 2006 election cycle, the group donated $947,600 to federal candidates, parties and committees, and its political action committee spent nearly $2 million on independent expenditures , or ads and other political activity supporting or opposing candidates, putting the association on CRP's list of Heavy Hitters . In the last presidential election cycle, the NRA gave $1.2 million to federal candidates and its PAC spent $7 million on independent expenditures. The organization has yet to reach such numbers in this presidential election cycle, giving $640,600 to federal candidates and spending less than $200,000 on independent expenditures through May of this year. That is likely to change, though, as Politico reports that the NRA is planning to spend approximately $40 million in order to publicly define presidential candidate Barack Obama as a supporter of "Chicago-style gun control," despite his endorsement of yesterday's ru ...
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