The ATF, charged with policing the gun industry, lets dealers get away with falsifying records and selling firearms without background checks.
The programs, policies, and people driving positive change in America’s gun violence problem.
American lives, shaped by guns.
The National Rifle Association is one of the most powerful special interest groups in America. We’re investigating how it spends its money.
Our team, our mission, our partners, and more. Plus: How to contact us.
We report stories that would go untold. Generous readers sustain our work.
Sign up now to get our latest stories and eye-opening briefings.
Bang for the Buck
The organization’s leadership is focused on external threats, but the real crisis is of its own making.
A new complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission accuses the National Rifle Association and GOP Missouri Senate candidate Josh Hawley of engaging in “an elaborate scheme designed to evade detection” of campaign finance violations. The complaint from the…
National Rifle Association
The National Rifle Association has turned to one of the most powerful conservative law firms in Washington to advance its lawsuit against a former business partner after its original counsel received an embarrassing dressing-down for an ethical lapse. The…
Following reporting by The Trace, nine senators accuse the NRA of skirting rules against coordinating with political campaigns.
The National Rifle Association is continuing to funnel much of its spending on the 2018 midterm elections through an apparent shell company that, according to one campaign watchdog, is part of a scheme to skirt election laws. Read Next…
As the gun group confronts serious financial straits, it has entrusted its operations to Josh Powell, a failed mail-order mogul who attracted a mountain of lawsuits in his former career.
An election watchdog has accused the National Rifle Association of violating campaign finance laws for the second time in less than three months, following a Trace report on the gun group’s use of an apparent shell company to attack Montana…
The “Three Men and a Baby” star stepped down in the middle of his fifth term as an NRA director.
The gun group's first big ad buy of the 2018 cycle was made through a company that, according to an election watchdog, exists only to circumvent campaign finance laws.
What we do (and don’t) know about the group’s financial health.
Lockton, the insurance broker behind the NRA’s Carry Guard program, argued in a court filing that the organization’s “inflammatory marketing” made it an inevitable pariah.
The National Rifle Association typically portrays itself as an indomitable force. But an ongoing court case has the gun group taking inventory of its wounds. In a new legal filing, it contends that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s campaign to…
On July 13, The Trace published an investigation into the National Rifle Association’s top election contractor, a mysterious firm called Starboard Strategic Inc. The article raised numerous questions about possible campaign finance violations committed by the gun group, and spurred…
The Campaign Legal Center, one of Washington’s top election spending watchdogs, filed a formal complaint Monday morning with the Federal Election Commission asserting that there is “reason to believe” that the National Rifle Association violated campaign finance laws in…
Since 2014, the gun rights group has paid more than $60 million to a little known contractor for ads in must-win political races. Did it break campaign finance laws in the process?
Robert Spitzer, a professor at the State University of New York and an authority on the gun group, parses the signals with The Trace’s Mike Spies.
