Obama campaigned in part on gun control....
For his first TWO YEARS in office, both houses of congress were solidly in his pocket. And he did NOTHING. And the Democratic Congress did NOTHING. Not a single bill was introduced, not a single policy was recommended, NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. I think that speaks loudly as to how important Obama and the Democrats think gun control is.
I know a guy who is the president of a gun club in the US and he was of the opinion that during Obama's 8 years in office the push for more gun control took a step back, if anything.
I can't help wondering if part of the issue is the question of government overreach, and the simple fact that certain moves that might theoretically be made would cause the people to realise the government was overreaching and push back, possibly very hard.
One example here would be the issue of things like gold. A few have described gold as little more than a "relic", a number of people own some form of gold-based investments and the people who insist on holding their own gold, in physical form, are generally derided as "gold bugs" who are often regarded as being somewhat detached from reality. Any talk of keeping physical gold at home, refusing even the relative safety of a box at thhe bank, is widely regarded as a sign of little more than paranoia. However, if the government were ever to move to take physical gold away from the people (as in the 1930s) it would suddenly demonstrate that those previously regarded as paranoid gold-bugs were actually onto something, and the chances of people resisting the government would rise accordingly.
Likewise if the government were to try and confiscate guns, whether by executive order or by a full-blown Congressional nullification of the 2nd Amendment, would that not also generate huge alarm among the people? Many have no desire to ever own a gun, and many more would like to see guns removed from the hands of citizens. But I suspect many more would be afraid that if the government were to remove the provisions of the 2nd Amendment there would be little to stop other rights from also being cancelled. If a government would overturn the 2nd Amendment, what would stop it from also overturning the recognition of the right to free speech, or the right to due process, or the right to refuse to self-incriminate?
One other issue where guns are concerned is that the very aspects of firearms that make them well suited for home defense are the same aspects that make them dangerous when misused. The functionality that provides the ability to repel multiple invaders also provides the ability to harm multiple targets when the weapon is used for offense rather then defense. The two are inextricably linked and the only way to even attempt to remove the opportunity to harm multiple targets in an offensive scenario is to similarly remove the ability to harm multiple targets in a defensive scenario.
The fundamental question has to be whether the majority of firearm use against human targets, at least by those who lawfully own their firearms, takes place in an offensive or defensive scenario.
A related issue to the call to ban firearms is the question of how far the "ban it" push will go. In the UK after a school shooting the government responded by banning firearms. In due course criminals took to using knives, so the law on carrying knives became progressively stricter. All the time the assumption is that if something might be used to harm someone it needs to be banned from being carried in public. And the results are much as one might expect - to the kind of street thug that people hope they never encounter having a charge of possessing an offensive weapon added to their rap sheet is more or less equivalent to a parking ticket, while to the average law-abiding professional such a charge would almost certainly be career-ending. And along the way the street thugs figured they could own aggressive dogs to attack, even to intimidate, other people - those other people having been totally disarmed by the law and therefore rendered unable to do anything to protect themselves if a dog were to turn nasty.
Having physically punched a dog in the UK in the past to make it clear that its repeated jumping up at me was not welcome (needless to say the owner was disinterested in the situation) and on another occasion having physically dragged a dog by its collar to stop it jumping up at me, I am thankful in the US that I am free to carry a knife much more dangerous than anything the UK law permits. At least in the US if I am attacked by a dog I have a sporting chance to defend myself. In the UK my option is little more than to hope it doesn't hurt too much, as I fight back with little more than fists and feet.