Too little, and it still didn't pass.
Today, a majority of the Senate, supported by over 90 percent of the American people on the issue, failed to pass a watered-down-to-the-point-of-near-ineffectiveness background checks bill.
It didn't fail because of a lack of support, but because 1) Harry Reid was too gutless to pass meaningful filibuster reform, and 2) because the NRA has owned the issue for too long, the sole players on the electoral battlefield. Yet the reality is that even last year, their influence had fallen precipitously—less than one percent of the $11 million spent by the organization in 2012 went to winning candidates. A total of 0.83 percent, to be exact.
Problem for the NRA is that they no longer own the issue, as its bought-and-paid-for candidates are about to find out:
"We'll get through this day, take down the bill, and get Senators prepared for the fact that they are going to be dealing with this issue everyday for the foreseeable future until they resolve it in the way the public wants," [Mayors Against Illegal Guns] director Mark Glaze told BuzzFeed as he waited for the clock to run out on the Senate gun violence bill drafted after Newtown.
"The NRA has passed it's sell-by date," he said.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Gabby Gifford's Americans for Responsible Solutions have already restored some balance in the public gun debate, pushing back against what was once a one-sided NRA attack. Bloomberg's Independence USA SuperPAC has already shown a willingness to counter the NRA's millions with millions of its own.
And perhaps more importantly, the NRA's invincibility facade has been chipped away by president Wayne LePierre's bizarre post-Sandy Hook behavior and the organization's dogmatic opposition to even the most tepid restrictions.
This wasn't a battle that was ever going to be won this year, even if today's legislation had passed. It's abundantly clear that the gun lobby will brook no dissent on its goal of unlimited and restriction-free ownership of weapons of mass death. There isn't a shred of decency among that crowd. Thus, the only way to move forward will be to make the NRA electorally radioactive.
Democrats have served notice that (aside from blood-red redoubts like Arkansas) 2014 will be fought in large part over guns. Too many elected officials and the NRA seem to think that's an automatic win for them. It no longer is.
