The NRA’s ‘A’ Rating Loses Its Luster for Republican Candidates

A top rating from the NRA is no longer the badge of honor it once was for Ohio Republican Bob Gibbs. For the first time in his decade of service in Congress, he isn’t bragging about his A-plus rating. In Florida, Republican Brian Mast must have known he was risking his A rating from the NRA when he wrote an op-ed declaring his support for an assault weapons ban after the shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school in Parkland. The gun rights group now gives him a question mark. In Pennsylvania, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a former FBI agent running for reelection to Congress, got former congresswoman and gun violence survivor Gabby Giffords’ endorsement after he was the only Republican in the U.S. House to vote earlier this year for a measure that would have kept guns out of the hands of dangerously ill people.