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There were only two years (2009-10) during the Obama Administration in which the Democrats held both houses of Congress. Additionally, the Republicans held 41 seats in the 111th Congress, so they had sufficient votes to block any big gun control legislation through the filibuster. There also were a few Democrats, such as Jon Tester of Montana, who would not support gun control due to in-state politics. The Obama Administration chose to focus on other issues, such as Obamacare, rather than a big gun control battle.

Note that where Democrats have achieved majorities in both houses of the legislature and hold the governor's office, gun control measures are passed, as evidenced in Michigan and Washington state.

Gun control isn’t the equivalent issue. Gay marriage is closer, but my suspicion is that the equivalent issue is reparations since it is a special interest issue detrimental to a similarly large group of people and favoring the views of a similarly small group of people who have no problem with lying, cheating, or stealing to inflict their will on everyone else. Both are being argued as a moral issue.

In both cases there are better and uncontroversial ways to push forward that are actively being sabotaged by alleged “supporters.” The reparations crowd could stop ginning up so much racial hate. The pro-life movement could go for consensus and widen its mission to support traditional extended families (since traditional extended families is a way that young couples get needed support to have more children and it’s a thing that is happening anyway).

Gun control already has a majority in favor of stricter controls, and that has been mostly the history in polling.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx

Anti-abortion is most certainly not in the same position as the far more popular gun control, and in fact it has even less support since Roe was overturned.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx

Support for abortion bans look more like support for reparations.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/11/28/black-and-white-americans-are-far-apart-in-their-views-of-reparations-for-slavery/

The more I think about it, the more it does seem that the comparable issue to abortion bans is reparations. In both cases it is alleged that some debt is owed that can prove ruinous to the alleged debtor. In both cases the consensus is that the debt does not attach.

Non-ruinous debt is not so held in the case of abortion, so taking into account ruinous debt exceptions, rape (which can tie a woman to an evil extorting criminal for 18 years), incest (which can also tie a woman to an evil extorting criminal for 18 years), life of the mother, and health of the mother, there is common ground to move forward, especially in the second and third trimester (of course that isn’t what the abortion banners want though).