The Missing Movement

The difficulty was that gun-control advocates overreached in the early days,” Goss says. “By pushing for handgun bans, they didn’t build up a momentum from lower-level, more incremental victories. These handgun-ban strategies helped energize and politicize the NRA and make it into the no-compromises ‘gun lobby’ that it is today.

So, the prohibitionists, unlike gun rights supporters, didn't bother to build a grassroots organization in the early days instead trying to do it all in one fell swoop at the Federal level. Didn't work out so well for them did it. They're trying to correct that now but still haven't figured out the difference between grassroots and astroturf. It really comes down to who can get the vote out. We can. It remains to be seen if the prohibitionists can, even with Mikey's money behind them.