The National Rifle Association spent more than $30 million to elect Donald Trump President. Particularly with Republicans in control of both the Senate and the House, and a vacancy on the Supreme Court, the gun lobby will expect an impressive return on its investment. What will it want?

Following the massacre of first graders at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre infamously said that the lesson to be learned was: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” That phrase perfectly captures a core premise of Trumpism: that the nation is neatly divided into “good guys” (who have been forgotten by the elites controlling our government) and “bad guys” (Muslims, undocumented immigrants and “the others” who have been allowed to threaten the safety and well-being of the “good guys”). LaPierre’s slogan likely will animate the entirety of the NRA’s Trump Administration agenda

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First, gun control activists must not surrender to despair and leave the playing field to the NRA. Given the extremism of the NRA’s “guns everywhere” vision of American society, the Trump gun agenda can be an effective vehicle to build on the organizing that has occurred since Sandy Hook. It is clearly possible that much of the pro-gun agenda can be stopped in the Senate, but it will require constant constituent pressure.

Second, it must be made clear to both political parties that the gun control movement is now a potent political force and will remain so. The 2016 election cycle brought a historic infusion of resources from gun control groups into the political process, with Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety and his Independence USA Super PAC, along with Gabby Giffords’ Americans for Responsible Solutions PAC, leading the way. Their spending contributed to some impressive victories, particularly the successful Nevada referendum to extend background checks to all gun sales, in a state with a record of hostility to gun control, aided by $16 million in spending by gun control forces, as well as the defeat of Republican incumbent Senator Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, with the help of $8.8 million in ads hammering her pro-gun votes in the Senate. Significantly, Republican incumbent Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania was reelected, even though he sacrificed NRA support by co-sponsoring a universal background check bill after Sandy Hook. Toomey received the support of Everytown and ARS, which sent a message that gun control forces will exercise their political muscle to support Republicans willing to buck the gun lobby. Going forward, this kind of well-financed, hard-nosed election activity by the gun control movement must become a permanent feature of the political landscape in a way that it has not been in the past.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-a-henigan/what-does-the-nra-want-_b_13135086.html