In December 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and killed 26 children and adults with a Bushmaster rifle before taking his own life with a handgun. The tragedy shocked the United States, sparking an outpouring of grief and widespread calls from the public for politicians to ‘do something’ about guns. The moment, it seemed, was ready for gun control advocates to seize, but like many times before, they ran into intense opposition from a powerful political force: the National Rifle Association (NRA). Drawing on interviews with leading voices on both sides of the gun regulation debate, Gunned Down goes inside one of the country’s greatest divides to illuminate how the NRA reinvented itself from a group of gun enthusiasts and sportsmen with minimal political focus, to a powerful lobbying force opposing any perceived infringement of the constitutional right to bear arms. It traces the emergence of one of the NRA’s top leaders, Wayne LaPierre, and explores how he has activated the group’s influential base in the wake of mass shootings. And with firsthand accounts of school killings in Newtown and Columbine, as well as the shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, Gunned Down examines why Washington hasn’t acted.