The New York Times examines why some states — Colorado and Connecticut — have been successful in enacting gun safety laws while Congress has been stymied.

Living in Arkansas, I thought the headline out of touch, or at least a bit sweeping:

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As Gun Control Advances in States, It Meets an Unforgiving Math in Congress

What advances? What you have in this story, actually, are defeats for the gun lobby in two states where mass killings occurred. The defeats occurred, even in those hot houses, only by tight margins and against an outpouring of massive resistance from the gun lobby, resistance that may yet produce future election backlash.

I also say this as a resident of the gun echo chamber of Arkansas: The gun lobby has won. Advocates of commonsensical and constitutional regulation have lost — to money, to passion and, in many cases, to fear. I don’t happen to think we are any safer for the victory of the gun. The steady rate of people wounded annually by guns (including accidentally) is testament to that. But, outliers like votes in Colorado and Connecticut aside, the outlook politically isn’t promising for regulation. I’m just about to the relax-and-enjoy-it phase.

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