The gun-control movement can protect its allies, after all

Look at which two Democrats were among the few to survive the midterm debacle: Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper and Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy, both top targets of the NRA for their having signed into law comprehensive gun-law reforms following the Newtown, Conn. massacre. Both governors got major financial support from Independence USA, the SuperPAC set up by Bloomberg to support candidates who favor tightening gun laws, as well as other candidates who fit Bloomberg’s definition of pragmatic centrism. And both also got strong grassroots backing from the groups that sprang up after the Newtown killings. (Gun-rights supporters have declared the election a victory for their side because a lot of NRA-endorsed Republicans won in a lot of races. Well, of course, they did—it was a Republican wave, and in many parts of the country Republicans win easily, year after year. But in few of those races was the gun issue a point of contention, whereas Connecticut and Colorado were places where the issue had come to the forefront of the election. And in fact, some of the Republicans who won elsewhere did so very much in spite of their NRA backing. In Maryland, for instance, Larry Hogan, the Republican candidate for governor, did whatever he could to downplay his NRA endorsement.)

And it wasn’t just the governors. Remember the successful recall in September 2013 of two Colorado state senators who had voted for the comprehensive gun-law reforms in that state? That victory for gun-rights supporters was taken as yet further proof that the gun control movement was incapable of protecting its allies, and was doomed to failure. I argued at the time that this reading overlooked the flukish nature of the recall—a special vote two months before election day in which Coloradans would not be able to vote by mail, as many are accustomed to doing, just the sort of low-turnout contest that favored the highly motivated minority of gun-rights activists in the state. And look at what happened last week: even in a big Republican year, when Republicans won the majority of the Colorado state senate, the Democrats won back both of those recalled seats with candidates who favor sensible gun laws—including one candidate who used to be employed by Bloomberg's previous group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns. With the election back on conventional terms, with the moderately good turnout of a regular midterm election, the ardent gun-rights minority in those districts was swamped by the broader mass of voters.

Gun-law proponents are taking the issue straight to the voters, and winning

Groups like the Brady Center, Everytown for Gun Safety, and Gabby Giffords’ Americans for Responsible Solutions like to cite the reams of polls showing widespread support for sensible measures like expanding background checks for gun purchases to include gun shows and most private sales. The problem, of course, has been that those majorities have been stymied by the minority of senators who filibustered Manchin-Toomey last year, and state legislatures reluctant to follow the lead of their counterparts in Connecticut, Maryland, New York, and Maryland, the states that enacted the most far-reaching reforms last year. So this year, gun control proponents tried something else: In Washington state, where expanded background checks had fallen short twice in the state legislature in recent years, they put the question directly to the voters. The referendum had strong backing from wealthy Seattleites like Paul Allen and won easily, with nearly 60 percent of the vote, despite an attempt by opponents to muddy the waters and confuse voters with a separate ballot question to bar the expansion of background checks.

This approach only works in states with an open referendum process. But the message was clear: If the issue is put straight to the broad mass of voters in a blue-leaning state like Washington, the majority will swamp the gun-rights minority, however ardent it may be. The NRA, for one, recognizes this reality, which is why it barely invested in the campaign against the Washington state referendum. (Before you dismiss Washington state as unrepresentative of the rest of the country, consider that its rate of gun ownership, about one-in-three, is not far from the national average.) And the next fronts in this approach are already clear: Petitions are expected to be filed this week to get the same question on the 2016 ballot in Nevada, and proponents also have their eye on Maine and Arizona. “The gun lobby can bully legislatures in ways that it can’t bully the American public,” says Feinblatt. “Taking it straight to the people makes sense when you have polls that show support across the country.”