Why Democrats are convinced they can run and win on gun control this year.

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• published: 24 Jun 2016
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/why-democrats-are-convinced-they-can-run-and-win-on-gun-control-this-year/2016/06/23/ed7b9a6a-395c-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html Why Democrats are convinced they can run and win on gun control this year. Shootings in an elementary school, movie theaters and a church weren’t enough. Nor was an assassination attempt on a lawmaker. But the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, followed by Republican Donald Trump’s calls for new firearms restrictions, have convinced Democrats that they can run and win on the issue of gun control this year. One reason is Orlando’s distinction as the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, a fact that has pushed advocates for greater gun restrictions to new levels of outrage. Another is the continuing shift of public opinion across the United States in favor of new laws. And finally is the unusual role that Trump has played in the discussion — bucking his own party by pushing for restrictions and putting some fellow Republicans in a sticky position with their constituents back home. All of it has prompted Democratic lawmakers to conclude that, even with little hope for legislative action this year, an election looms this fall that could change everything. “We’ve gotten to the point where it was becoming difficult and it was becoming painful to do moments of silence; many of us felt disingenuous doing a moment of silence knowing that was it,” Representative Xavier Becerra (Democrat - Calif.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said Thursday. “Frustration boiled over.” That frustration quickly led Democrats to force a legislative showdown this week. They used procedural tactics to upend House and Senate schedules, pushing Republican leaders to engage on an issue they had considered to be long settled. Trump helped, perhaps unwittingly, in that cause. Although he later backed away from his support for new laws restricting gun sales to terrorism suspects, his initial statement gave Democrats an opening, surprised moderate Republicans and triggered bipartisan talks in the Senate. Those talks ended in defeat on Thursday, but this week’s votes as well as the Democratic “sit-in” in the House chamber that ended Thursday captured the country’s attention in ways the caucus has struggled to do in recent years. And all of it prompted a flurry of preparations to take the issue to voters this fall. “After Sandy Hook, the country needed to mourn,” said Erica Lafferty Smegielski, the daughter of the principal killed in the Newtown, Conn., school massacre in December 2012. “It was the same after Aurora, Columbine, Virginia Tech. But they’ve just become so frequent that everyone is just — we’re done. The American people are done. The Democratic leaders are done. This week was absolutely historic. . . . Our leaders are finally taking action.” Aides at the campaign arms of House and Senate Democrats said this week that gun control will loom large in dozens of competitive races. Visit CHAOS View Archive For More CHAOS NEWS: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUiFq-IUU64l62ygPdbVnIA