For gun violence reduction gun owners are irrelevant.

[AndyS]

The reason gun control doesn't pass has nothing to do with gun owners. Sorry to deflate your overblown ego and sense of self importance but you are simply irrelevant.

Only 9% of voters, I assume gun owners, favor lessening gun restrictions.

Gun owners are not even a consideration, they are a minuscule minor irritation.

Sensible gun laws and the reduction of gun deaths, injuries and $280,000,000 a year cost are held hostage by the gun lobby.

Over the careers of current Senators the NRA has contributed $71,405,873 in campaign funds. For instance Mitch McConnell got $1.3m which works out to $1,863 per dead constituent. Mitt Romney got the most at $13,647,676 or $9,993 per dead constituent. Chuck Grassley single handedly blocked the last attempt at universal background checks and he's a piker at only $226,007 or $856 per dead constituent.

In 2020 alone the NRA spent $787,652 in direct contributions and another $29,355,400 in 'indirect' spending through PACs which filters into political contributions. I can't calculate that over the careers of our current Senators but it's kinda big, doncha' think? And that's just the NRA, not the entirety of gundom which includes the gun makers and other gun groups.

So it's not the poor besotted gun owners who are a problem. It's the ones who make $$ off death and misery.

https://elections.bradyunited.org/take-action/nra-donations-116th-congress-senators
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/national-rifle-assn/summary?id=d000000082

[billh58]

1. Too true

The gun lobby (arms dealers) promote gun violence on our streets in order to create an "arms race" mentality among the reason-challenged gunner crowd so that they can sell more guns. It is a vicious cycle which is exacerbated by stand-your-ground vigilantism, the justification of shoot-first excuses for murder, and the unfounded fear of "confiscation."

The die-hard, cold-dead-hands gunner crowd has been used by the greedy gun lobby for years as a cheering section to increase gun sales and to promote more gun violence to keep the obscene marketing machine running. The right-wing militias are itching for a chance to ride into battle in their big trucks, use their big guns to murder American citizens for whatever cause is currently popular, and also enjoy the support of treasonous MAGAt politicians.

[AndyS]

2. The truly sad part is that they don't see how sadly they are used

in the pure profit driven capitalism of gundom.

Like anti vaxers and anti maskers they are used by cynical grifters to feed the greed.

[Amishman]

3. Given the math of voter turnout an, that 9% is huge

That is 9% that almost certainly votes every election, and harasses (or worse) any politician who even talks about doing anything about this.

To compare, African Americans are 13% of the population and has 62% turnout in 2020. The gun nuts are a voting bloc of essentially equivalent size.

Blaming the gun lobby is putting the cart before the horse, the gun lobby would be powerless without the millions of hardcore gun nuts backing them. The NRA is a broken dysfunctional shell it's it's former self, fundraising down by half and losing members. Yet the gun lobby is still strong because the zealots are just shifting to other groups - most of which are even more extreme and insane.

Breaking the gun lobby can only be done by withering their support. The only way to do that is cultural change, which is not a fast process. The start would be to push to remove guns from games and media, and focus on ways of discouraging first time gun purchases.