[A]re Biden and Harris so fearful of the reaction by gun owners in, say, Montana or North Carolina that they won’t touch the subject [of gun control] with a rake? And have commentators been so thoroughly trained by the NRA that gun control has ceased to be part of the conversation? After the attempt on Ronald Reagan’s life in 1981, the national debate that followed was all about gun control.
In 1994, President Clinton, with the support of both parties, signed into law a ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines. That ban was allowed to expire in 2004 after massive lobbying by the NRA. In the decade that followed, according to the Brady Campaign, mass shootings involving the deaths of six or more people increased by 347 percent.
Today, most gun control advocates are so intimidated that all they are willing to discuss is a feeble thing called “gun safety.” Sorry, but would-be assassins and school shooters can be perfectly trained in gun safety, the better to kill people.
— Robert Kuttner in It’s the Guns, Stupid
Nothing new here . . . .
Back in the 1970’s, the leading gun control organization was the National Coalition to Ban Handguns. It soon realized that name didn’t make them very welcome outside of their echo chamber (indeed, it made them radioactive to most politicians), and had to rebrand as The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.
Except where the Democrats have supermajority control (California, Hawaii, etc.) and thus don’t have to worry about public perception, the antis won’t come right out and say it. But you know it’s there.