Kaine frames the National Rifle Association exactly right as 'just a shill for gun manufacturers.'

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine proved Thursday that Hillary Clinton won’t be the only member of the Democratic presidential ticket this year to take on the nation’s leading gun lobby. Speaking in New Orleans at the annual convention of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, an organization of African-American Baptist churches, Kaine pulled no punches:

Congress is too cowed by the gun lobby group, Kaine said, and by siding with the [National Rifle Association] against gun-control laws is siding against "a majority of Americans, a majority of gun owners, a majority of NRA members," who support certain gun-control measures opposed by the NRA. [...] "What happens is the NRA goes to Congress and they say, you know, 'you've got to stick with us,' " Kaine said. "The NRA doesn't even speak for members anymore. They're just a shill for gun manufacturers," Kaine said. "And gun manufacturers have one goal: Sell as many, whenever, wherever, to whomever. That's their only goal."

You certainly wouldn’t have heard such comments from Kaine when he ran for governor of Virginia in 2005. That year he made clear to voters that he would “not propose any new gun laws” as governor. And he filled out a survey for the Virginia Defense League with answers that backed up his support among gun rights advocates. Not a big surprise from a candidate in the state where the gun lobby is headquartered.

But 15 months into his term as governor, 32 people were killed in a mass shooting at Virginia Tech. Although he maintained his support for the Second Amendment, Kaine became more amenable to gun reform. By executive action, he closed a legal loophole that let people involuntarily committed to mental health treatment facilities buy firearms, vetoed bills that would have allowed Virginians to carry guns in their cars without permits and to carry them into restaurants and taverns selling alcohol. Later, he sought a requirement that background checks be conducted on would-be buyers at gun shows.

He soon became a target for the gun lobby, garnering an “F” from the NRA’s lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action. When he ran for the Senate in 2012, the NRA-ILA put more than $700,000 into defeating him. That made him No. 5 in candidates the NRA spent money to beat that year.

What Kaine proved by turning back that effort—as did most of the candidates for Senate and Congress the NRA attacked that year—is that Democrats have far less to fear from the gun lobby than conventional wisdom has it.