Though Democrats are known as the party of gun control, they’ve historically avoided making it a major campaign issue because strategists have been consumed with defending candidates trying to win in small-town and rural areas. This has been especially true in the south and west, where insensitivity to gun rights is often deemed a sign of cultural cluelessness or elitism. There’s a reason that so many Democratic candidates in these areas over the years have run ads showing themselves brandishing or even firing guns and have valued an NRA endorsement like it’s a holy talisman.

One by-product of the “sorting out” of geographical locations by party and ideology in recent years is that culturally conservative gun-loving people open to voting Democratic are essentially extinct. Accordingly, there are fewer and fewer viable Democratic candidates who need to be “protected” by national-party reticence on gun issues. As Daniel Nass noted in 2020, nearly a quarter of Democratic candidates for Congress in 2010 received “A” ratings from the NRA, signifying a “solidly pro-gun candidate.” In 2020, that number had dropped to just one: Minnesota congressman Collin Peterson, who promptly lost his seat that November.

Going forward, there is less and less reason for Democrats to downplay sensible positions on gun issues as national campaign priorities. The cost of a “backlash” from gun-rights enthusiasts is becoming lower than the potential benefits of a “frontlash” rewarding renewed activism.