Political contributions generate access and influence for firms, but their public visibility exposes
firms to reputational risk. We study how firms adjust their political spending when the
reputational cost of political ties rises sharply. To identify this response, we exploit fatal school
shootings and mass shootings as exogenous shocks to the salience of gun violence in the United
States. We implement a staggered difference-in-differences design on a panel of corporate PAC
contributions to U.S. House candidates, 2000–2024. We find that corporate PACs divest
selectively and temporarily following gun violence shocks. Contributions to Republican candidates
fall by 70.3% after fatal school shootings in competitive districts and return to baseline within nine
months, with no substitution toward Democratic candidates. A parallel penalty of 60.9% emerges
for Republicans in safe Democratic districts but is absent in safe Republican districts. Mass
shootings generate similar perturbations in corporate contributions. These patterns indicate that
firms withdraw only where the reputational risk of continued association is high or its strategic
value is low. The observed divestment appears across industries and is stronger for firms with
greater consumer exposure. Our findings reveal that firms treat political ties as time-varying
liabilities, temporarily withdrawing visible financial support when issue salience spikes and
resuming once public attention fades, leaving firms’ long-run political investment intact. Since
public pressure is limited and dissipates quickly, and corporate divestment is transient rather than
durably reallocated, the underlying financial incentives facing policymakers remain unchanged in
the long run, sustaining the policy status quo.