# List of Progun Democrats?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [June 8, 2019, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211 "2019-06-08T14:14:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2019, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/1 "2019-06-08T14:14:13Z")
I would have thought a list of all current Congresscritters with their NRA rating would be easy to find. I would have been wrong. The lists I can find are all old.
Is there any obvious way to compile a list of governors and members of Congress based on their attitudes towards guns? This ought to be easy.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2019, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/2 "2019-06-08T15:06:24Z")
Do you want NRA ratings, or do you want the candidates’ positions? So far as I can tell, the NRA’s evaluation consists entirely of “does the person have a D or an R after their name?”.
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### Author:  [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2019, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/3 "2019-06-08T15:17:07Z")
Well, I am arguing elsewhere on the internet. I was hoping for an easy way to generate a list of progun Democrats. The NRA ranking would just be a means to that end.
(Let me see if I can go at it the other way, got to an anti-gun group for their ratings.)
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### Author:  [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2019, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/4 "2019-06-08T15:21:57Z")
Nope. Brady and Everytown gave me no obvious list.
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### Author:  [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2019, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/5 "2019-06-08T17:11:57Z")
not a politician but Bill Maher has said he owns a gun for protection, I assume it’s a handgun.
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### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/6 "2019-06-08T17:14:37Z")
Never mind the NRA. Go to Gun Owners of America site and check their Congressional ratings. They are far more accurate than the NRA’s.
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### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2019, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/7 "2019-06-08T19:07:24Z")
NPR has a chart of past votes on gun control laws, organized by state: [CHART: How Have Your Members Of Congress Voted On Gun Bills? : NPR](https://www.npr.org/2018/02/19/566731477/chart-how-have-your-members-of-congress-voted-on-gun-bills) It’s more than a year old, so includes some people who aren’t in Congress any more (e.g., Heitkamp of North Dakota).
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### Author:  [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2019, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/8 "2019-06-08T20:11:19Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#):
>
> not a politician but Bill Maher has said he owns a gun for protection, I assume it’s a handgun.
Owning firearms is no measure of being pro gun. Lots of people are of the attitude, okay for me but not for thee.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2019, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/9 "2019-06-08T20:28:32Z")
> [@Bone](#):
>
> Owning firearms is no measure of being pro gun. Lots of people are of the attitude, okay for me but not for thee.
Assuming one isn’t for banning all handguns, there’s nothing hypocritical about supporting some increased gun control measures and owning a gun. If they own an AR-15 with a 30 round magazine and want to ban AR-15s and 30 round magazines, then that’s hypocritical, but not simply owning a handgun while being broadly in favor of gun control measures.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2019, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/10 "2019-06-08T22:09:19Z")
Here you go, from the Washington Post, as of February.
[Four Democratic senators have at least an A- rating from the NRA.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/02/15/52-senators-have-an-a-minus-nra-rating-or-higher-including-four-democrats/?utm_term=.5306c206d3ef)
Joe Manchin III (W.Va.)
Joe Donnelly (Ind.)
Jon Tester (Mont.)
Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D)
However, Manchin co-sponsored the bill to stiffen background checks after Sandy Hook, and Donnelly and Tester supported it.
Bernie Sanders, who insists he’s a 2nd Amendment supporter, got a D- from the NRA in 2012, the last time he was rated by them.
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### Author:  [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2019, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/11 "2019-06-08T22:47:56Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> Assuming one isn’t for banning all handguns, there’s nothing hypocritical about supporting some increased gun control measures and owning a gun. If they own an AR-15 with a 30 round magazine and want to ban AR-15s and 30 round magazines, then that’s hypocritical, but not simply owning a handgun while being broadly in favor of gun control measures.
Sure. Not hypocritical, but not pro gun. More like the white moderate that King talked about in his letters from a Birmingham jail.
Just like someone can’t be pro choice and want to make abortion illegal after 10 weeks of pregnancy.
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### Author:  [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2019, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/12 "2019-06-08T22:51:59Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> Assuming one isn’t for banning all handguns, there’s nothing hypocritical about supporting some increased gun control measures and owning a gun. If they own an AR-15 with a 30 round magazine and want to ban AR-15s and 30 round magazines, then that’s hypocritical, but not simply owning a handgun while being broadly in favor of gun control measures.
I would challenge this by changing the issue from gun control to abortion. Is there room for someone to be labeled “pro choice” yet support restrictions on abortions? Maybe there is… As a litmus test for a candidate however, I can’t think of any D seriously running for President who is considered pro choice but supports any of the new laws being passed across the nation or any real restrictions on abortions. I feel the same to be true considering gun control.
I think it is difficult to call someone a “pro gun” candidate who supports any increased gun control measures, or being broadly in favor of same. They are neutral at best and whether they own guns personally is neither here nor there for me.
It looks like someone else has posted a list of pro gun candidates so if this is a hijack, please disregard.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2019, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/13 "2019-06-08T22:56:02Z")
> [@Bone](#):
>
> More like the white moderate that King talked about in his letters from a Birmingham jail.
Comparing gun owners (or gun rights activists) to (routinely brutalized and even murdered) black people and civil rights activists strikes me as, at best, indicative of a gross misunderstanding of history.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2019, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/14 "2019-06-08T23:04:51Z")
> [@JXJohns](#):
>
> I would challenge this by changing the issue from gun control to abortion. Is there room for someone to be labeled “pro choice” yet support restrictions on abortions? Maybe there is… As a litmus test for a candidate however, I can’t think of any D seriously running for President who is considered pro choice but supports any of the new laws being passed across the nation or any real restrictions on abortions. I feel the same to be true considering gun control.
>
> I think it is difficult to call someone a “pro gun” candidate who supports any increased gun control measures, or being broadly in favor of same. They are neutral at best and whether they own guns personally is neither here nor there for me.
>
> It looks like someone else has posted a list of pro gun candidates so if this is a hijack, please disregard.
I wasn’t quibbling with not calling them “pro-gun”, just implying that they are hypocrites. It’s not hypocritical to be in favor of restrictions on abortion, unless one has (or helps a daughter/girlfriend/wife have) an abortion that would be illegal under those restrictions.
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### Author:  [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2019, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/15 "2019-06-08T23:11:21Z")
It’s likely you will find most Dems rated high by the NRA in the south. A lot of them switched to the GOP but not all of them.
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### Author:  [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2019, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/16 "2019-06-09T02:05:06Z")
Thank you. My, wasn’t that harder to find than you would have thought? People talk about NRA rankings all the time, but it is hard to find a clean list.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2019, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/17 "2019-06-09T12:46:57Z")
Someone can be pro-\ and still support reasonable restrictions on \. Someone who calls themselves pro-\ and supports unreasonable restrictions on \ is hypocritical. The point of contention is just which restrictions are reasonable. And on any issue, there will always be a few loud folks who call any restrictions at all unreasonable.
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### Author:  [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2019, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/18 "2019-06-09T17:01:07Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Someone can be pro-\ and still support reasonable restrictions on \. Someone who calls themselves pro-\ and supports unreasonable restrictions on \ is hypocritical. The point of contention is just which restrictions are reasonable. And on any issue, there will always be a few loud folks who call any restrictions at all unreasonable.
The word “reasonable” is truly key in this discussion.
With that being said, do you consider any of the viable D presidential candidates pro gun? I don’t, nor do I consider Trump pro gun either FWIW.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2019, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/19 "2019-06-09T17:12:48Z")
None of them is in favor of repealing the 2nd Amendment, which makes them all extremely pro-gun, by comparison with the vast majority of the world.
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### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-progun-democrats/835211/20 "2019-06-09T18:42:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Do you want NRA ratings, or do you want the candidates’ positions? So far as I can tell, the NRA’s evaluation consists entirely of “does the person have a D or an R after their name?”.
> [@pkbites](#):
>
> Never mind the NRA. Go to Gun Owners of America site and check their Congressional ratings. They are far more accurate than the NRA’s.
Eh, the GOA is more likely to base ratings on their party, so much that NRA As get Fs from them. Not that the NRA’s ratings are necessarily honest.
> [@Kent\_Clark](#):
>
> Here you go, from the Washington Post, as of February.
>
> [Four Democratic senators have at least an A- rating from the NRA.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/02/15/52-senators-have-an-a-minus-nra-rating-or-higher-including-four-democrats/?utm_term=.5306c206d3ef)
> Joe Manchin III (W.Va.)
> Joe Donnelly (Ind.)
> Jon Tester (Mont.)
> Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D)
>
> However, Manchin co-sponsored the bill to stiffen background checks after Sandy Hook, and Donnelly and Tester supported it.
>
> Bernie Sanders, who insists he’s a 2nd Amendment supporter, got a D- from the NRA in 2012, the last time he was rated by them.
I don’t think that’s from February consieridering Heitkamp was out of office in January. Also no current political position, but Jim Webb was the most recent one to run a campaign for President.
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> None of them is in favor of repealing the 2nd Amendment, which makes them all extremely pro-gun, by comparison with the vast majority of the world.
Quite frankly, “the world” doesn’t have a say.
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