I think that day has just about passed though; again, when the GOPs senior spinmaster and pollster says the NRA is out of touch with the public, that is tantamount to saying the GOP not only cannot win its argument against any new gun control, but will badly maul itself trying. It is becoming a bit like the old Aesops fable about the snake with the file: The more fruitless their attacks the fiercer they become, until they end by wounding themselves.

The thing is, as mass shootings become more frequent, so does most peoples desire to have guns for their own defense and deny them to the criminal and/or deranged. Those desires are complementary rather than contradictory for all but the criminal and/or deranged, and since many of them have already lost their voting rights anyway they have little voice in deciding any regulations. That said, I DO very much wish the absolutist pro/anti-gun minority would stfu, because the alarmism of each derives what little credibility it retains from that of the other. No one would take either fringe seriously if the other ceased validating it.