The NRA posted steep losses in fundraising and membership dues, according to its tax filings for last year. | Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Elections NRA’s fortunes fell as gun-control groups gained power

Revenue at the National Rifle Association fell by $54 million in 2017, a 15 percent decline that coincided with a record number of mass shootings in the U.S. and a rise in spending by gun-control groups.

The gun-rights group posted an even steeper drop in membership dues, which fell 22 percent, or $35 million, to a five-year low, according to documents the NRA filed with the Internal Revenue Service this month.


The group directed $27 million to its political arm, the Institute for Legislative Action, down from 2016, a presidential election year in which the institute spent more than $76 million.

Advocacy groups frequently post lower receipts in non-election years and revenue totals can fluctuate wildly from year to year, and NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam called the 2017 tax document a dated snapshot of the group’s activity.

As evidence of the group’s political clout, he pointed to this year’s jump in NRA magazine subscribers, nearly all of them dues-paying members.

“The NRA has approximately 5.5 million dues paying members today — the highest level ever in the history of our Association,” Arulanandam said in a written statement. “The historical fact is nobody has fought for and produced results in defending Second Amendment rights and American values like the NRA.”

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While gun-control groups continue to lag behind the NRA’s behemoth budget and grassroots organization, they’ve redoubled their political and fundraising efforts after a spike in the number of mass shootings and are on track to outspend gun-rights advocates in the 2018 midterm elections, according to an analysis from the Center for Responsive Politics.

“This is the first election cycle in history that gun-control groups outspent gun-rights groups,” said Anna Massoglia, a researcher with the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit watchdog group. “It’s not really clear what it means yet.”

In contrast to the NRA, Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control group financed heavily by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, saw its fortunes rise last year. It reported nearly $28 million in revenue in 2017, up from $17.5 million a year before, according to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service. The group’s political arm, however, posted a decline in receipts, from $53 million in 2016 to $35 million in 2017, an off-year for elections.

Unlike the NRA’s grassroots operation, which can be mobilized to turn out voters and lobby lawmakers, Everytown relies heavily on big donors.

In the 2016 presidential election cycle, the NRA spent more than $30 million to propel Donald Trump into office and spent hundreds of millions of dollars more to flood congressional districts with ads favoring Republicans.

In 2017, the U.S. suffered a record number of shootings involving four or more people, according to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive, and it also marked the deadliest single episode in modern U.S. history.

On Oct. 1, 2017, Stephen Paddock opened fire from his high-rise hotel room onto Las Vegas concertgoers below. He shot more than 1,100 rounds of ammunition into the crowd using an accessory known as a bump stock, which increases the speed at which bullets are fired. He killed 58 people and wounded more than 800 before fatally shooting himself.

A few months later, in February, a teenager with an assault rifle killed 17 people, most of them students, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

Trump, himself a gun owner , held public meetings with students and lawmakers after the Parkland shooting. He called for stricter gun-control measures and accused lawmakers of being “afraid” of the NRA.

But the president’s tone quickly softened after a private White House meeting with NRA officials, including Executive Director Chris Cox.

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence “support the Second Amendment, support strong due process and don’t want gun control,” Cox tweeted after the meeting.