Democrats Betting Big That Gun Control Will Still Appeal to Middle-of-the-Road Suburban Voters

Emma Gonzalez (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

The subhead of this Atlantic article is ‘The party is betting that support for restrictions is more likely to attract moderate voters than turn them off.’ That in all probability appeared like a very good technique earlier than March, when a pandemic adopted by widespread rioting, looting and defunding of police departments sparked the most important gun buying surge within the history of the world ever.

As we noticed the other night, the Democrats are clearly sticking with that approach, hoping that thousands and thousands of first-time gun house owners gained through a win’t be turned off by the occasion’s avid civilian disarmament bent. As each sports activities and political speaking head says about each situation they’re ever requested about, it’ll be fascinating to see how this performs out.

Leaders within the gun-control motion count on to push a Biden-Harris administration to move laws requiring complete background checks, and a federal red-flag regulation that will allow authorities to take away firearms from Americans thought of a menace to themselves or others, Feinblatt instructed me. Maybe, he added, the administration will even revive discussions about an assault-weapons ban.

But like much of the occasion’s agenda, any legislative progress on gun management virtually definitely is dependent upon an overwhelming Democratic victory in November. The base could also be extra unified than ever on the concern. Its lawmakers is perhaps too. But absent a Democratic wave—and maybe the end of the Senate filibuster—successful the White House gained through a win’t be sufficient.

Bloomberg’s presidential marketing campaign folded shortly after that February home occasion in McLean. Watching the conference final evening, I considered one other voter I met there: Rebecca Boldrick Hogg, a retired trainer and the mom of David Hogg, a younger gun-control activist who, like González, survived the Parkland shooting. David, Boldrick Hogg defined on the time, was all in for Sanders, however she couldn’t abide the senator’s once-moderate document on weapons. Her son was inclined to simply accept that Sanders’s political positions had developed, however she couldn’t carry herself to forgive him for it. Her vote, like so many others’, hinges on what place a candidate stands on weapons.

– Elaine Godfrey in Democrats’ Unprecedented Embrace of Gun Control