Some politicians will certainly try to use the tragedy in Connecticut to advance a gun control agenda. Although politicians may not have changed much since 1994, Americans have changed a lot with respect to gun control.
Yesterday, the
New York Times reported the AR-15 as the most popular rifle in the US, with well over 3 million outstanding. Add to that number all of the other "assault weapons" covered by the former AWB and you have a substantial bloc of motivated citizens/voters today that did not exist to nearly the same extent in 1994.
FBI
reports show that between November 30, 1998 and November 30, 2012 there were about 150 million NICS checks for direct firearms sales and permits. While nobody knows exactly how many individual gun owners those NICS checks represent, the number has to be in the tens of millions.
The 1994 AWB was a political miscalculation and politicians were subsequently spanked pretty hard by the electorate. With the growth in gun ownership since 1994, sweeping new gun control laws would result in a much larger voter response today. Politicians may not be the smartest or most trustworthy group of people in the country but, as a group, they are not prone to doing things that threaten their jobs.
Contact your members of Congress - there ARE enough of us to make the difference.