The Big Five Gun Control Groups
Everytown for Gun Safety | Giffords
March for Our Lives | Final Thoughts
Giffords
Giffords is named after its co-founder, former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ), who was shot in an attempted assassination in 2011. Her husband is current U.S. Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ). Originally called Americans for Responsible Solutions, the group became known as Giffords after a 2016 merger with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which itself had been formed in response to the 101 California Street shooting of 1993. Giffords explains that everything it does “is in honor of the victims and survivors of the two shootings that led to our founding, along with every other victim and survivor of gun violence in America.”
According to Giffords, the concept of American exceptionalism has been “overshadowed” by an “extremist gun culture unrivaled in peer nations,” though it also blames high rates of gun violence in minority communities on “structural racism.” Giffords supports dozens of different gun control laws, including firearms licensing and registration, mandatory waiting periods, bans on high-capacity magazines and “assault weapons,” and strict limits on carrying firearms in public. It even suggests regulating BB guns like real guns and requiring a government license simply to possess ammunition. Giffords publishes an annual Gun Law Scorecard, which grades each state on how thoroughly it restricts civilian access to firearms. As of 2025, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York all received “A” grades, while 22 states received “F” grades.
Major organizational funding for the 501(c)(3) Giffords Law Center from 2022 to 2023 came from donor-advised fund providers such as Donor Advised Charitable Giving ($2,087,567), the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund ($1,232,818), the American Online Giving Foundation ($419,546), the National Philanthropic Trust ($381,600), and the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program ($273,600). Significant private foundation funders over that two-year period included the Joyce Foundation ($555,000), the Albert and Janice Meister Family Foundation ($260,000), the Hobson Lucas Family Foundation ($250,000), and the Look and See Foundation ($250,000). In 2023, the Giffords Law Center sent $2.79 million to its sister 501(c)(4) Giffords, which also received $275,000 from the Far Star Action Fund in 2022. During the 2022 election cycle, the affiliated Giffords PAC gave 97 percent of its contributions to Democratic candidates and made 100 percent of its independent expenditures against Republicans. In 2024 these numbers were 99 percent and 96.7 percent, respectively.
Brady
The oldest of the major American gun control groups, Brady was founded as the National Council to Control Handguns in 1974, subsequently renamed as Handgun Control Inc. An affiliate called the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence was established in 1983. According to the 1993 book The Activist’s Almanac, these groups had 1990 revenues of $7.6 million and $1.7 million, respectively (equivalent to approximately $18.9 million and $4.2 million in 2025 dollars). In late 2000, Handgun Control Inc. was renamed as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, while the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence became the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The name was chosen in honor of former White House Press Secretary Jim Brady—who was shot during the 1981 attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan—and his wife Sarah Brady, who served as the organization’s chair until 2015.
Brady operates based on what it calls a three-point strategy, which it likens to past efforts targeting drunk driving, seatbelt use, and tobacco smoking. First, it wants to enact gun control laws such as universal background checks, purchase permit requirements, and bans on high-capacity magazines and/or “assault weapons.” Second, it aims to hamstring the firearms industry through lawsuits and public pressure campaigns. Finally, it seeks to change “the culture around how we use, own, and perceive firearms,” such as through a campaign to shift how guns are portrayed in Hollywood movies. Brady also believes that gun violence is inherently linked to “racial injustice, gender-based violence, and economic disadvantage” and accordingly that any associated public policy efforts should avoid “exacerbating disparities” or “reflexively relying on criminalizing traumatized communities.” The group claims that “police violence is gun violence,” and that police violence is in turn “exacerbated by deeply-rooted racism.”
Major funders of the Brady Center from 2022 to 2023 include the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund ($2,252,459), the Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust ($1,000,000), Donor Advised Charitable Giving ($815,545), the Kelson Foundation ($500,000), the Fulk Family Foundation ($500,000), the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program ($450,568), the Goldman Sachs Charitable Gift Fund ($431,860), the American Online Giving Foundation ($347,428), the Arie and Ida Crown Memorial ($335,250), and the Roots and Wings Foundation ($301,380). During the 2022 election cycle the Brady PAC gave over 92 percent of its contributions to Democratic Party candidates and made over 90 percent of its independent expenditures in favor of Democrats. During the 2024 cycle, it gave over 95 percent of its contributions to Democratic candidates, and its independent expenditures were 54.9 percent for Democrats and 45.1 percent against Republicans.
In the next installment, March for Our Lives has gone the furthest in embracing an intersectional “Everything Leftist” approach to its gun control activism.
