Who says we can't have both? You? The choice depends, if the Sunset is just going to be followed by something worse in a year or two, I'd rather my morale, and that of others, be raised for the fight against the next encroachment.
I just don't see your logic that the President speaking out against some bill, any bill, increases its chance of passage, especially when the President in question has historically high support. Nor does his "support", even if only in statements that he thinks it "reasonable" and that he would sign it if it comes to his desk, increase the chances of it passing, by giving "cover" to certain members of the President's own party that are no friends of the RKBA.
If he used that support, and tied the killing of the AWB into incrased security at home, the bill would really be DOA, IMHO of course.
Whatever it is you're smoking, you really should quit.
Bill Clinton did not say "This bill is a giant leap forward in our journey toward a totalitarian peoples' paradise" when the AWB was passed, though that was the agenda.
There is a middle third of the voters who have no clue, but it is they who determine the course of elections. They listen to the bleating of the Liberal press and think it is the gospel.
Gun control is an issue the press is expert at demagoging. Give them an opening and they will have the clueless sector of the electorate peeing all over themselves.