Newtown changed everything

Adam Zyglis via politicalcartoons.com

Gun control. That's what it was called before Newtown. Remember how no one was talking about gun control?

Except for the NRA. They never stopped talking about it. This is from June 2012:

President Barack Obama has shown little interest in peddling a gun control agenda during his first term, but the National Rifle Association is urging its members not to let its guard down ahead of the 2012 election.

In a new mailer, forwarded to us by a reader, the gun rights group lists "Ten Reasons Why Obama is Bad for the Second Amendment." We've been exploring several claims on the list this week -- you can see our findings here...

The NRA has taken a fragment of an unclear quote and prescribed the most far-reaching, conspiratorial conclusion. There simply isn't enough evidence for such a sweeping claim. We rate it Pants on Fire.

For an interesting reminder of how Newtown changed the President's priorities, check out this brief video from Bloomberg on Dec 19th, or this one, same date, with Chuck Todd, entitled Tipping Point:

David Maraniss has more:

If Dec. 14, 2012, was, as he said, his most difficult day in the White House, one unspoken aspect of his despair was a sense of deep remorse that, in the service of political survival, in the pursuit of power, in the obsession with avoiding traps, he had given little more than perfunctory attention to the issue of gun control. In word and deed since then, he has shown more passion and resolve. Perhaps the conscience of his late mother kicked in, her idealism finally overtaking his concern that people like her were too naive. Certainly the empathy of a father with young daughters had a transformative effect.

So does Jodi Kantor:

When the president returned from consoling families of teachers and children killed in the Newtown, Conn., massacre ' he wept as they handed him photos and told him stories of victim after victim ' aides could see in his face the toll of absorbing the nation's traumas. 'This is what I do,' Mr. Obama told them.

But it wasn't just the President. All over the country, from local forums to national platforms, everyone has been talking and debating about gun violence and what to do about it. From the Danbury News-Times:

Top police commanders from several of the state's cities and towns have thrown their weight behind Newtown police Chief Michael Kehoe, who inserted himself firmly into the gun-control debate last week by calling for a ban on assault weapons.

Because it isn't just the NRA now, the discussion has been much more thoughtful and balanced than this guy:

DAVID GREGORY: You don't think guns should be part of the conversation?

WAYNE LAPIERRE: I think that is the one thing that we can do immediately that will immediately make our children safe.

DAVID GREGORY: Is it the only thing?

WAYNE LAPIERRE: Gun control, you could ban all Dianne Feinstein's, you could do whatever she wants to do with magazines, it's not going to make any kid safer. We've got to get to the real problems, the real causes. And that's what the N.R.A. is trying to do.

And I think, I'll tell you this, I have people all over the country calling me saying, "Wayne, I went to bed safer last night because I have a firearm. Don't let the media try to make this a gun issue."

The media didn't make it a gun issue. Shooting 20 first graders multiple times each'along with the brave adults who were shot trying to protect them from being massacred'made this a gun issue. Only a gun issue? No, not by any means. But a gun issue nonetheless? Despite LaPierre's tone-deaf response, yes.

And has it mattered? Here's the headline from the Jan 18th NY Times, referring to their own poll:

Massacre Sways Public in Way Others Did Not
The massacre of children at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., appears to be profoundly swaying Americans' views on guns, galvanizing the broadest support for stricter gun laws in about a decade, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll.

Here's an even broader view, looking specifically at the question (not all polls ask it) of making gun laws more strict:

Collation from pollingreport.com
Join us below the fold as we talk more about how Newtown changed the landscape.