The supposedly new-and-improved gun-control lobby was convinced that conventional wisdom was out of date. It set out to convince politicians that the landscape had changed. It had a less inflammatory message and more modest goals than the would-be gun-prohibitionists of the 1980s and ’90s. It had a public that seemed galvanized by the shootings in Tucson and Aurora and Newtown, and polling data that seemed to show voters overwhelmingly supportive of its aims. The NRA’s message and tactics, by contrast, seemed laughably antique and tone deaf. A vote for gun control, advocates claimed, wasn’t just a safe vote; it was the only safe vote. Senators who voted against the federal gun-control bill were punished with ad campaigns and saw their approval ratings dip. For the first time, the terrible calculus of politics seemed to be on gun-control advocates’ side.
But there was still one thing they needed to prove. They needed to prove that they could protect the lawmakers whom they coaxed out on a limb. On Tuesday, they failed that test. Future lawmakers facing similar votes aren’t going to care about the particulars; they’re going to look at John Morse and Angela Giron and think, That’s going to be me. No thanks.
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