<i>Note that these were all Republican congresses</i><p>Ummm, the House was held by the Democrats for <i>all</i> the dates you mention except 1998, the Senate for the first two <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Party_divisions_of_United_States_Congresses" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Party_divisions_of_United_Stat...</a>).  And you&#x27;re wildly mistaken that party affiliations mapped that closely to <i>official</i> positions on guns till the 1990s, and to this day it&#x27;s much easier to be an anti-gun Republicans like those now pretty much only found in NY or Illinois than, say, an anti-abortion Democrat.