Last Call

Mike Lillis over at The Hill can barely suppress his glee as President Obama's political obituary is written once again over gun regulations being dead, dead, dead in Congress.

An assault weapons ban is on life support and Senate Democrats have failed to entice a single Republican to back universal background checks. Congress also this week solidified four gun-friendly laws as part of legislation to fund the government through September.

To some observers, the shift in momentum comes as no surprise at all.

"[NRA CEO] Wayne LaPierre made terrible mistakes early on. They took two very bad spills," Ross Baker, political scientist at Rutgers University, said Friday in a phone interview. "But they quickly recovered and they assumed their usual position of dominance.

"They may do poorly in the first quarter, but they rally and they're usually ahead by halftime," he added. "They've been at it a long time. They know what buttons to push."

Adam Winkler, a constitutional expert at the UCLA School of Law, offered a similar explanation this week, arguing that even when the NRA is on the ropes, it "still sways a lot of voters."

"The NRA didn't become the political powerhouse it is by losing high-profile battles," Winkler, the author of "Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America," said Friday in an email.

"Even though the NRA had a poor showing in the November elections, the people whose job it is to know who sways voters — members of Congress — still think it can deliver."

In the world of The Hill -- again, about as inside the Beltway as it gets -- the NRA does indeed rule triumphantly.  I've warned time and time again that Wayne LaPierre's seemingly insane babbling makes perfect sense to the doomsday prepper crowd, and they're millions strong.  Barack Obama has been the best thing for firearms manufacturers and ammo makers since the beginning of time.  Record sales, huge shortages, and demand growing by double digits quarterly?  Tell me the NRA is crying.  They exist to get Americans to buy guns and ammo and brother, are they ever buying.

Like it's the end of the world or something.