California's Senator Diane Feinstein wrote an Op-Ed to the New York Daily News in which she says "The very fact that we're debating gun violence is a step in the right direction.
The issue has been off limits for far too long, thans to the oversized influence of the gun lobby," she said. "I believe the American people are far ahead of where their elected officials are on the issue.
With 90% of the country backing expanded background checks for gun sales, one of the sensible proposals defeated in the Senate, there was considerable other evidence that in months and years to come, the NRA's death grip on Congress finally will be broken.
The Senate's deplorable action only served to galanize gun control advocates in their push to change the political calculus of the issue, from the determination of local officials to begin holding craven legislators accountable for constantly bending over for the gun lobby and the disgusted resignation of prominent members from its ranks, to the sight of elected officials moving to expand regulation of deadly weapons in state legislatures and the fierce and heartbreaking commitment of the families of the children and teachers slaughtered in Newtown.
As Michael Tomasky, editor of the progressive publication "Democracy" put it: Historians will see this recent debate, culminating in yesterday's vote, as the time when the gun-control lobby grew and coalesced.
The gun issue, since the 1970's a blunt instrument used mainly to bully rural-state Democrats, is going to start turning into the opposite: pressure on blue-and purple-state Republicans to vote at least for modest measures.
In decades to come, Feinsteins legacy will be seen as her career-long championing of practical gun controls, including her signature push to outlaw the assault weapons and ammunition so often used by crazies for mass murder.
That is, of course, when her loopy Beltway colleagues finally feel the growing pressure for rational changes in the law and follow the blunt advice she offered senators during last week's debate:
"Show some guts."
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