Note that these were all Republican congresses Ummm, the House was held by the Democrats for all the dates you mention except 1998, the Senate for the first tw

Note that these were all Republican congresses Ummm, the House was held by the Democrats for all the dates you mention except 1998, the Senate for the first two https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_States_Congresses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_Stat...). And you're wildly mistaken that party affiliations mapped that closely to official positions on guns till the 1990s, and to this day it'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.