The NRA makes a great scapegoat for the Democrats, just like Wall Street, drug companies, and fossil fuel industries, but the real cause here goes much deeper than that. As I’ve noted many times before, to a reactionary, guns aren’t objects; they’re icons representing strength, independence, masculinity, Christianity, and the rejection of a government that they view as being hostile to all of those values. The NRA is just the most prominent mouthpiece for those views.
As long as reactionaries continue to feel this way and comprise a substantial part of the electorate, there will be little or no progress on gun violence. Appalling as these events and that statement may be, that’s just the way it is.