He sounded grim and he sounded frustrated. He should be. Ten months after the killing of 20 primary school children sparked a new push for gun control Congress has not passed a single law to broaden background checks, restrict access to military-style rifles or limit the size of magazines, all measures that were mooted after the Sandy Hook's indescribable loss. True, some liberal states have introduced some measures - including Connecticut, where Sandy Hook is - but those measures have been equalled, perhaps outweighed, by National Rifle Association-backed laws stripping away what little gun regulation exists in other right-leaning states. To foreign eyes some of these laws will seem preposterous. The resurgent Republican party now controlling North Carolina has just passed a "save the gun" law, which prohibits law enforcement agencies from destroying guns they confiscate or purchase in buy-backs. Instead they must keep, donate or sell the guns to licensed gun dealers. Some of the state's police forces - who do not like their officers being shot - held last minute buy backs just ahead of the law's introduction to try to get some of the weapons off the street. Also this month the Des Moines Register revealed that Iowa state authorities has been granting gun licences to people who are legally or completely blind.

In Missouri earlier this year a state politician proposed a law that would make it a felony for politicians to even introduce a gun control law into the state's general assembly. Other states have passed laws that would make it illegal for state employees - that is, police officers - to help enforce what few federal restrictions do exist or may be introduced. In Colorado two senators - one a former police chief - just suffered defeats at recall elections because they had dared to back very limited gun regulations - extending background checks to all buyers and limiting the size of magazines to 15 rounds. 15! Recalls are launched by petitioning citizens who can force politicians to face new elections if they collect enough signatures. Removing the two Colorado state senators was a major NRA victory that will have broad implications across the nation. An example has been set. "The National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) is proud to have stood with the men and women in Colorado who sent a clear message that their Second Amendment rights are not for sale," the NRA crowed in a statement after the election.

No one is quite sure how many have died at the end of a gun in America since Sandy Hook, but in 2010 there were 19,392 firearm related deaths, including 11,078 homicides and 19,392 suicides. Slate.com is maintaining a crowd-sourced project to tally gun deaths, but most of those it is able to verify are murders and accidents. Its interactive graphic makes for terrible reading. Visitors to the site can click on any one of 8232 icons of men women and children to read the details of their deaths. So why has nothing happened? In part the gun debate in America perfectly reflects the nation's broader political malaise. Liberal states are becoming more liberal as conservative states pull further to the right. The gulf between them is filled more by mutual anger and contempt than understanding. This is the same fissure that has utterly stalled America's Congress, where Republicans dominate the House and Democrats hold a majority in the Senate so slim that can be overcome by the Republican filibuster. With no real control of Congress then Obama and his allies - including many of the parents of children killed in Sandy Hook - tried to appeal directly to the people early in the year in order to shame Congress into adopting proposed reforms. They failed, and soon Obama seemed either to lose the will to act or became overwhelmed by the battles to prosecute his own broader agenda while fighting constant political brushfires like the Snowden leaks and IRS scandal. What is less clear is why the executive of the National Rifle Association is so hysterical, so insistent that any regulation of guns is evidence of government tyranny, even though there is evidence even their own membership overwhelmingly supports universal criminal backgrounds checks.

This hysteria was convincingly explained in an essay earlier this year by Matt Bennett, a former White House staffer who now advises the Sandy Hook Promise gun control lobby group. He argues there are three types of gun owner in America - hunters, those who want self-protection and finally those who own guns as a bulwark against government tyranny. The first two groups are the majority, and most of them support some gun control. The third group, the constitutionalists, are the minority but wield the most power, especially since they seized control of the NRA in a coup during an executive meeting in 1977. Their outsized influence is no mystery - like most motivated single-issue voters, they care more than anyone else in the room. Now that they have forged a lucrative alliance with gun manufacturers they have the war chest too. With the battle-lines drawn it is not hard to predict how the public debate over coming days will go. Gun control advocates will point out that the Navy Yard shooter was armed with an AR-15 military-style semi-automatic rifle, the same gun that killed Sandy Hook's children, the same gun that felled so many in a Colorado cinema. They will note that the killer managed to take most of the 12 lives he ended in burst of gunfire between 8.18 am and about 8.25 am. The gun lobby will deny the AR-15 is a military style weapon - despite all the industry advertising that boasts that it is - and condemn critics for "politicising" a tragedy.

Loading Neither side will address the real issue. Whatever you think of the ready civilian access to military-style weapons, and there is no doubt that that is what the AR-15 is, long arms only kill a few hundred people in America each year. By murder and suicide thousands upon thousands are killed by handguns. You can bet no one will be talking about that.