Groups such as the National Rifle Association have often prevailed in the face of majority public opinion by being better organized and having a more passionate base of support. Indeed, the passion of the NRA membership is legendary. What makes gun laws so challenging to policy-makers is there is not a lot of unbiased, factual information available, Bruce said. That's one reason he and Dr. Clyde Wilcox, a professor of government at Georgetown University, decided to put together the collection of essays in The Changing Politics of Gun Control. You can, for example, get a summary of state gun laws from Handgun Control Inc. and another from the NRA, and they don't seem to be the same laws.
Legislators look for facts on which to base decisions.
Policy-makers are in limbo. A safe forecast of this national debate would be that it is not going very far in either direction. Whatever I think of guns as mechanical devices, they sure do wreak havoc on people. The NRA has found legislative success at the state level, where pro-control groups are weakest, said the Ole Miss assistant professor. Currently about 34-36 states have fairly liberal laws about people carrying concealed weapons.