It's not really "the left", as most actual leftists I know also own guns. The problem is that the NRA basically took the side of school shooters, so now being a gun owner in liberal-left circles puts you on the side of the people who support school shootings.
Well, the party platform of the DNC is solidly anti-gun. The DNC is not the left, but I’m not sure the left is the the left either. ;)
It would suffice to say though that if you assume a democrat politician supports gun control either by personal conviction or the nature of caucusing, you would be right 95+% of the time. It is as much of a shame that a democrat majority is de facto hostile to gun rights as it is that the NRA hitched its wagon to unrelated culture issues.
A major reason why that shift happened was because if there was a pro-gun Democrat and a pro-gun Republican facing off against each other in a tight race, the NRA would back the pro-gun Republican and claim that the Democrat was going to take your guns away. The net result is that it is always a losing position for a Democrat to be pro-gun.
So over the past 20 years the pro-gun Democrats have almost entirely died off. The NRA is probably the single most significant driver of this shift.
There used to be pro-gun Democrats the NRA would give “A” ratings to, that’s true. But your reasoning about the demise of pro-gun Democrat politicians doesn’t make much sense. First, all else being equal, of course the interest of gun rights would side with the politician whose party is less hostile to gun rights. Again, all else being equal. Not sure how far you want to go back but as long as I’ve been alive the major federal gun control agendas have always been initiated by one party in particular. It may be fine to give an “A” rating to Democrat Dan’s record in support of gun rights, but if his election turns control of a legislature to a party openly hostile to the 2nd Amendment, Democrat Dan’s election on the balance isn’t going to be good, is it? To be honest, the NRA rarely goes beyond issuing their report card on a candidate’s voting record and public statements. I don’t recall seeing them “endorse” a politician where their opposition has a strong pro-gun record, though ai wouldn’t be surprised if it did happen if the election was high-profile enough. I’ve just never seen it happen.
As to why there aren’t outspoken pro-gun democrats, I hardly think you can blame the NRA for that. The NRA just doesn’t matter all that much, bogey man reputation aside. Realistically, how much of a chance does a Dem candidate have in a primary, all else being equal, if they are an outspoken advocate of gun rights? It impacts their funding, their volunteer support. The reality is that the DNC’s official platform is anti-gun, and a politician who doesn’t support a party’s platform (on either side of the aisle) is increasingly rare these days. It has more to do with the lack of opportunity for nuanced political positions.
