The winner in this election is ... the NRA

There was a time in the mid 1990's when prominent members of the Democratic Party (and some Republicans) were on the offensive against the NRA (see http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/schumer.speech.html and http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/1994/01/nra.html) now it seems that the movement has completely died out. You have prominent Governors like Bill Richardson and Brian Schweitzer getting NRA endorsements and liberal bloggers like dailykos saying it is an issue of states' rights. The Chairman of the Democratic Party, Howard Dean, also has been endorsed by the NRA in the past and potential Vice Presidential Candidate and former Virgina Governor Mark Warner also received an A rating from the NRA.

None of the Democrats running for Senate are running on gun control and two of the Republicans that are likely to lose, Mike DeWine and Lincoln Chafee, are both pro-gun control.

Unless another obesse filmaker takes up the cause, it looks like the NRA has won.

I really don't enough to comment on gun issues, but I will say that I think the states' rights arguments are poor ones. While in 1789 it made sense to have states' rights when it came to gun control, it no longer makes sense when it is quite easy for one to engage in interstate commerce. If Pennsylvania has lax gun laws and New York has strict gun laws, all a New York resident has to do is either go to Pennsylvania him/herself to get a gun or find someone who is in Pennsylvania willing to sell him/her a gun. In essence, any kind of strict gun control laws in one state are almost completely thwarted by other states.