1 / 8Liberal Gun Owners PoliticsIn this Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020, photo, Kat Ellsworth of Chicago, poses for a portrait with five of the seven guns she owns at the Caliber Tactical Gun Range in Waukegan, Ill. Ellsworth was firmly against firearms and favored gun-control until just a few years ago when she went with a friend to a gun range and discovered a love for firearms and shooting.
Gun owners have long been seen as a solidly Republican voting bloc, but there are millions of Democrats who own firearms, too. All the Democrats running for president are seeking one form or another of gun restrictions. But current frontrunner Sen. Bernie Sanders finds himself under attack for being too pro gun. Bloomberg launched an attack on Sanders' gun record this week, noting he had been endorsed by the NRA earlier in his career and balked at expanding background checks.
Liberal gun owners, Yamane said, are generally newer to gun ownership and are less likely to be the stereotypical face of gun owners: older, white men. It's a dynamic that doesn’t “get as much play because the public/political ‘face’ of gun owners for many remains Wayne LaPierre,” the firebrand leader of the NRA.
“They were both slower than others to develop and make public their proposals for gun control policies, and I believe the reason is that both of them are really not as anti-gun as they are forced to show publicly,” she said.