= new reply since forum marked as read
First, consider that the number of adults owning firearms is closer to 80 million than 50 million. Now, what do you have to offer those 75 million (or if you wish, 45 million) other gun owners besides scorn and a promise that you want to take away, criminalize or ban the sale of some or all of their guns, despite the fact that these people have done no wrong?
If you remember that 30% of those gun owners are Democrats, add in the Republicans and offer zilch to these voters except insulting stereotypes, threats of coercion and thinly disguised hatred, is it any wonder that gun control is getting turned down by people looking at the electoral math? A quick check shows that over 90% of the NRA-backed candidates in 2014 won their elections. This includes Colorado, where Mark Udall lost his seat after support for the recalled Colorado State Senate members, and Gabrielle Giffords' old seat in Arizona, which had been held by a fellow victim in the shooting that almost killed her.
If you belittle gun owners at every turn (even liberal ones like here at DU) and offer zero alternative to the NRA as a voice in Congress or the public eye for gun owners, it should not be much of a surprise that the NRA has the influence it does. Most of the RKBA people at DU do not like the NRA either (myself included), but that doesn't seem to count for much hereabouts. I was called an NRA-lover as recently as yesterday, in a perfect example of the "if you ain't with us, you're against us" mentality that keeps the NRA influential and makes their worst "gun grabber" prose more of an accurate description than hyperbole.
Like I said at the top, if you oppose the NRA, give those tens of millions of gun owners and gun rights supporters something better. Because the "If you roll over and let us take some of your stuff now maybe we'll be nice and not take more or it later club" doesn't seem to be getting many new members.
All this, and the paper has moved toward the right.
