WASHINGTON — Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska strode across an open field, a rifle draped over his shoulder. Brian Schweitzer, running for governor of Montana, wore camouflage as he peered through the viewfinder perched atop his gun.
Those images, featured in television ads promoting the candidacies of two Democrats, help explain why the Democratic-controlled Congress is not rushing to pass stricter gun laws after the shootings at Virginia Tech that left 33 people dead and spurred renewed calls in some circles for further restrictions on firearm sales.
Democrats have traditionally backed gun restrictions. President Clinton signed an assault weapons ban in 1994, a bill passed by a Democratic Congress. After the deaths of 15 people at Colorado's Columbine High School in 1999, he and Democratic lawmakers pushed for more gun laws. But they were stymied by the Republicans who then held congressional majorities.
Democrats now nurse thin majorities in the House and Senate -- majorities they attained last year in part because they recruited candidates who opposed more gun laws and who won on traditionally Republican turf. And many in the party are embracing the culture of hunting that is a way of life in rural America.
The muted response on Capitol Hill to the Virginia Tech massacre underscores an evolving willingness among some Democrats from the party's urban and coastal strongholds to recognize the political realities that face colleagues who need rural votes to win office. It also illustrates a growing belief within the party that Democrats probably cannot keep power without a strategy to appeal to voters in the typically conservative heartland.
Many strategists believe that the 1994 assault weapons ban cost the party its congressional majorities later that year in the midterm election. In 2000, Democrat Al Gore's loss in the presidential race was blamed in part on the gun issue. And in 2001, a successful gubernatorial campaign by a Democrat who embraced gun rights persuaded many party leaders of the political value in courting hunters.
The party's 2004 presidential nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, attempted to score points with gun enthusiasts, donning camouflage and hoisting a 12-gauge, double-barreled shotgun for a day of duck hunting in the battleground state of Ohio.
