Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. claims the guilty plea of suspected Russian spy Maria Butina and the outcome of the 2018 congressional elections mark the “beginning of the end” for the “gun lobby” in the U.S.

Dionne believes Butina’s plea keeps Americans focused on the still-unproven claims of Russian collusion in the 2016 election, and he thinks the midterm elections indicate a shift in the electorate that favors the gun control lobby.

He writes: “Taken together, the events of 2016 and the results of the 2018 election will be remembered as the beginning of the end of the gun lobby’s power.

Dionne hedges his bets by admitting his frustration that the overthrow of the “gun lobby” may not be complete as quickly as leftists would like because of the “vast over-representation of rural states in the Senate [which] tilts the system, undemocratically, toward those who claim that government is powerless to take meaningful steps against mass killings.”

In making his point, he completely overlooks the fact that the Founders wanted the system to be undemocratic, thus, they created a Republic with checks and balances to frustrate those seeking total control.

Dionne goes on to lament our nation’s “shameful immobility in confronting mass shootings” but does not offer any ideas on how such crimes should be confronted. He mentions gun control in general but provides no specifics.

He does point to a backlash against Bill Clinton as the birth of the “gun lobby’s” power but, even then, does not explain that the backlash was against gun control — specifically, the 1994 “assault weapons” ban.

On December 15 — the day before Dionne’s column was published — the NRA reached 1,000,000 followers on Instagram — not exactly a sign of diminishing influence or power.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.