The reason why we will get a gun control bill of some kind passed is simple, if reduced to First Principles. Let's start from the Bill Kristol Premise: elections have consequences. Of course, Kristol is one of the most prominent Republicans you can find, but he said this on Fox Sunday right after the election.
According to the Kristol Premise the GOP will have to compromise with the President a lot more than they might want to think. We already saw this on taxes. With this dynamic in place you add the senseless violence in Newtown, and it defies imagination that the GOP can really refuse any concessions on gun control. If we can't get something done after 20 first graders are mowed down in cold blood in their class room we are truly hopeless as a society.
Moving from First Principles to more "mundane. stylized facts" the NRA's-and the NRA gives the GOP it's marching orders-absolutism is only going to lead to more of a backlash. They claim that there meeting yesterday with Vice President Joe Biden was "disappointing" and that the Vice President is too "rigid" yet they are the ones who won't consider any gun control measures.
The White House is open to all measures including gung control, the NRA to anything except gun control. Who is too rigid? HuffingtonPost has a piece that chronicles the deep ties of the NRA to the gun industry. Is this really just a crude desire to maximize gun sales on their part?
"In this context, you really should read the Huffington Post’s big piece detailing the degree to which the NRA represents, first and foremost, the multibillion dollar gun industry. The piece details the financial ties between the two, and demonstrates a key thing about this debate: The NRA is putting an enormous amount of firepower into defending what can only be described as an extreme worldview, one that encourages resistance to even the most sensible regulatory and public safety efforts, with the apparent goal of ensuring that the country is awash in as many guns as possible."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/01/11/the-morning-plum-the-nras-big-lies/
My sense is that there's always an ideological angle as well as a "vulgar interests angle." The ideology is that guns are a force for good and that they must enforce zero tolerance towards any gun control measures as it's just a slippery slope towards a gun ban.
This is a lie, as no one is talking about that. Yet some of the more feverished gun nuts believe it no doubt. Another reason I believe that gun control will happen is that the American people support it. I'm not just talking about Democrats/liberals.
Most NRA members support some gun control measures and indeed, most Republicans do. This last point is key. Often we here that gun control won't happen as most GOP House members are not answerable to the country but just to their own Right wing districts where they worry more about a Tea Party primary opponent than a liberal general election opponent.
However, if most Republicans also favor some sensible gun control measures, the point is moot. Just how much of lie this idea is that Obama and the gun control advocates want to burn the 2nd amendment is becomes particularly clear if you watched Ed last night. On it the parents of the young 24 year old woman who was murdered by James Holmes in his crazed Colorado theater rampage were on last night-she was studying to be a sportscaster.
The mother made the point that she and her husband are gun owners and she used to be a hunter herself. If this doesn't put a lie to this 'they want to take your guns" alarmism nothing will.
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