Gun control groups are powerful. While we often hear the NRA vilified and described as ubiquitous in the debate over the Second Amendment, but over the last few election cycles, anti-gun groups have spent more than the NRA on elections.

Further, they’re organized, arguably more organized than gun rights proponents.

However, as one op-ed over at the Washington Examiner notes, it’s not enough to help them.

Moms Demand Action became a “political juggernaut” under Watts’s leadership, the Washington Post claims. “Now, in much of the country, Moms Demand’s influence has eclipsed that of its longtime adversary, the National Rifle Association,” we are told, as it has “enlisted tens of thousands of volunteers” across the country. (The NRA claims to have around 5 million members — make of that what you will).

And what has this “political juggernaut” done to advance gun control over the past decade? Practically nothing.

In 2013, the Senate voted down President Barack Obama’s gun control agenda. Nine years later, the group got its big win with the “first significant gun legislation” to become law in three decades. But the bill “didn’t include many of the sweeping changes activists had long fought for,” though. In fact, it only incentivized states to pass red flag laws and slightly tightened background checks for certain crimes.

Aside from that, the group has accomplished next to nothing. The gun control movement lost substantial support during the pandemic, hitting a seven-year low in 2021. Millions of people became first-time gun owners during the crime wave that followed the Black Lives Matter riots, leaving the gun control movement in an even weaker position for years to come. But hey, Watts trolled the NRA on Twitter sometimes (including with misleading claims), and “no one today can out-organize” Moms Demand, according to her.

As author Zachary Faria notes, they might just be the most organized losers out there, and he’s right.

The truth is that there have been moments when gun control seemed inevitable. After Las Vegas, for example, it seemed likely we were going to see some kind of gun control legislation come to pass. Legislation with bipartisan support was even introduced.

What we got was a bit of regulation that may not even survive for much longer.

That was a golden opportunity for the gun control side of things. They had everything they could want aligned for them, including broad public support, and…nothing.

For all their ability to organize, they accomplished nothing.

That’s because, at the end of the day, they’re pushing to erode people’s rights in a representative republic. That’s an uphill push any day of the week. While it may feel like our rights are going to all dissolve away, most people aren’t comfortable going as far as the zealots would like.

As a result, their efforts get stymied. They run straight into walls they’re convinced are automatic doors. They just can’t understand the world as it is, rather than as they wish to be.

“But the polling-”

No. The polling doesn’t tell you anything because so much of it lacks nuance and can be easily manipulated–either intentionally or not–by those who ask the wrong questions.

Gun control can organize all they want. They’re not getting anywhere.

Now, just imagine what would happen if we could end a lot of the infighting, push out the grifters, and organize ourselves just as much while also having the power of being right. What all could we accomplish?