Reality TV saved the Second Amendment

I used to dream that someday I would make a fortune, retire from whatever business occasioned the fortune and endow what I would call the Second Amendment Litigation Trust.  The sole purpose of this trust would be to finance the engagement of Second Amendment attorneys to prosecute litigation designed to result in judicial decisions affirming the constitutional right of individuals to keep and bear arms.
I envisioned raising public, legislative and judicial knowledge and awareness of the origin of, and the meaning of, the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.  I was looking forward to hiring Second Amendment scholars to identify what we believed to be Second Amendment violations and to persuading people to whom injustice had been done to become the plaintiffs in our crusade to advance liberty in America by dusting off and exalting the Second Amendment.

It is striking how Democrats have deleted from their vocabulary the phrase “gun control.” For decades policy arguments about restrictions on firearms have sharply divided conservatives and liberals.  But the subject of “gun control” was nowhere to be found in the congressional mid-term elections of 2010 or the presidential election of 2012.  Not one word about restrictions on firearms was uttered by President Obama until he was asked directly in a presidential debate whether he would support a renewal of the federal ban on “assault rifles.” Obama said “yes,” genuinely from his personal policy preference, but visibly hesitatingly from his campaign strategy point of view.

What caused this reversal of liberal dogma?  Why is “gun control”  now a dirty word and a guaranteed political loser?

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