And when discussing his views on his campaign website, Kelly is careful with his language. Not one of Kelly’s TV ads even mentions guns. However, Kelly is not running hard on gun control. Together they founded a gun violence prevention group, which is now named after her. He is the husband of former House member and gun violence victim Gabby Giffords. Gun control advocates may be particularly excited about the prospects for the Democratic challenger in this year’s Arizona senate race, Mark Kelly. If Democrats take back the Senate this year, it will likely be thanks to voters in gun-friendly states like Georgia, and those new senators won’t suddenly become insulated from America’s cultural divide. For example, in 2018, Lucy McBath, a mother of a gun violence victim largely known for her subsequent gun control activism, won a House seat representing suburban Atlanta long held by Republicans.īut in that same election, Republican Brian Kemp won Georgia’s gubernatorial race after running an ad in which he proves his commitment to the Second Amendment by pointing a gun at a nervous teenage boy courting his daughter. Might things change after a 2020 blue wave? Might Democratic success in the right-leaning suburbs and lingering revulsion from mass shootings in Parkland and Las Vegas, compounded by a weakened NRA, alter the political calculus? There is some evidence of this. ![]() … The American answer to civic and military decadence, real or imagined, was the armed yeoman.” You could erase the NRA today and that gun culture would remain, for someone else to exploit. Fifty years ago, the historian Richard Hofstadter explored “America as a Gun Culture,” which noted the “extraordinarily efficient lobby of the National Rifle Association.” But Hofstadter also recognized the NRA was exploiting a gun culture with roots that reach all the way to our founding: “The popular possession of the gun was a central point in a political doctrine that became all but sacrosanct in the Revolution. The NRA has long nurtured a gun culture that contributes to our political polarization. Since a dedicated gun rights voter is more likely to punish a politician than an intermittently engaged gun control supporter (whose interest in the subject often fades between public mass shootings), many politicians are not reassured by consistently pro-reform polling data and shy away from taking a tough vote. The political conundrum over gun control Democrats have long faced is that their proposals poll well yet face vehement and debilitating minority opposition. Successful coalitions usually require some degree of bipartisanship to contain inevitable opposition from large groups of voters, not just small cabals of elites. Such narratives have elements of truth but miss the bigger picture: To enact legislation in a republic, you need a broad coalition of support. And we can’t control guns because of the NRA. We can’t fix the economy because of Wall Street. We can’t solve the climate crisis because of the Kochs. Such frenzied buying is a reminder to politicians that the gun owner constituency remains present, intense and engaged.ĭemocrats have a tendency to rationalize why we can’t have nice things by villain-izing individuals and organizations. Already this spring and summer, we’ve experienced the biggest gun sale surge in 10 years, in panicked reaction to the pandemic and the racial justice protests. Other competing gun rights groups such as Gun Owners of America, National Association for Gun Rights and the Second Amendment Foundation would still channel the views of the gun rights grassroots to elected officials and new organizations could crop up to do the same.Īnd don’t be surprised if a Democratic presidential victory will spark a spike in gun sales, which is what happened in 2008 when Barack Obama won. ![]() Conservative media outlets would still cater to their fears. A fervent gun rights culture of hunters, collectors, open carriers, militia members and self-defense enthusiasts would still persist. Even if the NRA is gone or tied down by litigation, about 43 percent of Americans will still live in gun-owning households. ![]() Mondaire Jones, the progressive rising star expected to win New York’s 17th Congressional District seat, Thursday summed up the prevailing Democratic view: “Dissolving the NRA would remove one of the biggest impediments to gun safety measures at the state and federal level.”īut that’s a dangerous assumption for Democrats to make. ![]() Bill Scher is a contributing editor to Politico Magazine and co-host of the show “The DMZ.”ĭemocrats rejoiced at the news that the New York Attorney General is aiming to dissolve the National Rifle Association.
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