This week, President Obama said it is “heart-breaking” that his administration has not passed more gun control, and he pledged to continue pushing the subject for the rest of his presidency. But at least one Democrat strategist wishes Obama would drop the gun control push already.
The difficulty in dropping the issue, as far as Democrats are concerned, is that it is also being pushed by Democrat surrogates–like Everytown for Gun Safety. And these surrogates are going to keep pushing no matter what Obama does.
According to The Washington Times, strategist Dave “Mudcat” Saunders said talking about gun control is a loser for Democrats:
Every time a Democrat starts talking about guns, they lose numbers because it is the Second Amendment. How many gun owners are there now in America? Look it up. There is a bunch of them, and anytime you start talking about guns you are going to take away from your numbers. So there is just less talk about [gun control] now.
A number of Democrats who are up for re-election in 2016 agree with Saunders and wish Obama would forget about gun control and move on. But these Democrats are stuck between a President from their own party who is focused on passing as much gun control as possible and groups like Everytown and Moms Demand Action, who enjoy the limitless funding of Michael Bloomberg and do not have to answer to voters every two years for their attacks on the Second Amendment.
In fact, Everytown is in Nashville this weekend–while the NRA is there–making sure gun owners know the Bloomberg-funded group plans to keep pushing gun control.
Everytown spokeswoman Erika Soto Lamb explained:
We have been taking the fight for safer and more responsible gun laws to statehouses, to Washington, and corporations around the country, and that is why we are in Nashville this year, to call attention to how the NRA has been pushing dangerous legislation that hinders public safety in a number of states across the country, and we have been fighting them with some success for the first time in a long time.
In the 2014 mid-terms, the NRA won in over 90 percent of all the races in which they endorsed a candidate, literally handing the gun control movement one devastating loss after another. The 2016 elections are now less than two years away, and a gun control platform does not portend victory.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.