I'm hoping you'll school me on this, and not the other way around. Let's wait and see what happens. I'm going to be that Assault Weapons Ban renewal will turn out to be more of a contentious issue than you suspect, because of Republican waffling.
Our reps on the hill know that we peons in flyover-land don't like gun control, but they can't understand why. The matter baffles them, for the most part. In absence of constant reinforcement to the contrary, they default to increasing gun regulation.
Enough of this... I need to sit down and write some paper-mail letters to my Senators, the more-or-less honorable Messrs. Edwards and Dole. [sigh]
It will only become contentious if the AWB renewal gets put on the radar screen because some "conservatives" are idolators who consider politics to be a religion and will settle for nothing less than dogmatic declarations by their false god in Washington.