The outcome of Wednesday’s dramatic Senate vote on expanding background checks simultaneously demonstrated the difficult geography confronting gun control advocates in the Senate and the potentially daunting math facing gun rights proponents in the Electoral College.
On the one hand, the defeat showed how difficult it is for gun control advocates to reach the 60 vote threshold required to break a filibuster in an institution whose two-Senator per state apportionment magnifies the impact of small, heavily rural states where guns are interwoven into the culture.
On the other, the vote suggested that, after years in which gun control has been sublimated as a political issue, support for expanding background checks and possibly further steps has again become a political norm in almost all of the blue-leaning states that underpin the recent Democratic advantage in the race for the White House. [cont.]
Ron Brownstein, National Journal
Recent polls: Guns