The Changing Demographics of the Gun Issue

President Barack Obama announced several times in his second term that he was determined to make the imposition of new gun control laws or regulations a high priority. Obama did so after he was re-elected and became a lame duck and only after he lost control of Congress.

President Obama did not lead on the gun issue in 2009 or 2010 when his party commanded supermajorities in the House and Senate. He waited until he lost enough seats in the House and Senate to guarantee that any discussion of gun control was just that — a discussion, not an effort to change the law. This decision to avoid the gun issue suggests that he doubted the issue was a political winner and, for whatever reason, it was not allowed to interfere with health care, bank regulation legislation or his re-election.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has grabbed the gun control issue with both hands as a central part of her 2016 presidential campaign. She could have focused on other matters. Hillary made this decision knowing that in 1994 her husband watched his party lose 54 House and 9 Senate seats following his passage of the Brady Bill and “Assault Weapons” Ban. President Clinton credited opposition to his gun control legislation as key to losing 26 House seats.

But the world has changed since Bill and Hillary Clinton lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Then the gun issue was viewed by the Clintons as something important only to a few hunters in very rural areas. Since 1987, however, 41 states have passed “shall issue” concealed carry laws that ensure that any honest citizen over 21 who wishes to carry a gun concealed be given a government permit to do so. Concealed carry, as the name implies, involves handguns, not rifles or shotguns. By 2004, the number of permits had risen to perhaps 4 million. By spring of 2015, the number was over 12.8 million with some states not requiring any permit at all to carry concealed: Wyoming, Arizona, Maine, Vermont, Kansas, and Alaska.

One and a half million Americans obtained concealed carry permits in the last 12 months. Most of them were women. The Demographics of the gun issue have shifted significantly under Hillary’s feet in the past 20 years.

Look at the “swing states.” Florida residents hold 1.4 million active concealed carry permits. Pennsylvania: 1.064 million. Ohio: 462,800. Michigan: 610,943. Wisconsin: 253,116.

This election could be decided by the gun issue. But voters today carry their guns in their purses — not their pickup trucks — and they live in suburbs and in the very states that will determine the Electoral College.