“Fuck them”, said Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was killed in the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., in 2018. “Fuck all of them. Our kids are dying in record numbers, and it is because of them”.
Just more than a year ago, after back-to-back shootings in Georgia and in Boulder, Colo., temporarily reignited the gun control debate, proponents of stricter gun laws sensed an uncommon opening. The NRA was in turmoil, Democrats had gained control of the White House and both houses of Congress, and public polling — including widespread support for background checks — was on their side.
But if the first 16 months of Joe Biden’s presidency demonstrated anything, it was the limitations of Democrats’ razor-thin majority. Gun legislation has stalled, and Republicans heading into the midterms have every incentive to court the NRA.
“The gun issue is a perennial issue that’s not going away, whether there’s a mass shooting or not”, said John Thomas, a Republican strategist working on...
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