Article snippet: Democrats this week used the one-year anniversary of the deadly Parkland, Fla., high school shooting to advance legislation cracking down on access to firearms in states across the country. Bills moved not in blue states, but in purple states like Nevada and New Mexico where Democrats hold newfound political power. And on Capitol Hill the day before Thursday’s anniversary, a House committee approved a measure that would require background checks on firearm sales. Rep. MORE (D), the mother of a teenager killed by gun violence who represents a suburban swing district in deep-red Georgia, cast an emotional vote for the legislation. Earlier in the week, Mark Kelly, a retired astronaut and one of the faces of the most prominent gun safety organizations in the country, raised more than $1 million the day after announcing he would run for a Senate seat in Arizona, a hotbed of hands-off libertarianism. In all, the week illustrated the new normal of gun politics in America, an evolution that has altered a balance of power once so skewed toward gun rights advocates that those who favored restrictions on guns found it easier to simply shut up. For two decades, the ghost of the 1994 Republican wave, fueled by the National Rifle Association’s heavy spending against Democrats who voted in 1993 to advance the Brady Bill and a federal ban on assault weapons, has haunted the debate over gun control in the United States. Republicans aligned themselves with the powerful NRA, whose ... Link to the full article to read more