Cognizant of the growing strength of the emerging gun lobby, Democrats, who had long called for stricter gun control in the party platform, softened the language in 1976 to acknowledge “the right of sportsmen to possess guns for purely hunting and target-shooting purposes.” This didn’t satisfy anyone, however, especially the many gun owners who believed guns were about personal protection in an era of rising crime and decaying cities. Gun enthusiasts knew that if the right to bear arms was simply about recreational activities, it might not last long. Ever since, the Democratic Party has fumbled around trying to find language that both calls for gun control and recognizes the Second Amendment.

The NRA, now committed to a more extreme view of the Second Amendment hostile to nearly any gun control, became a key partner in the New Right coalition that lifted Reagan to the presidency. Reagan, who understood the politics of gun control in this new environment better than anyone, gave up his support for gun laws. His turnaround was so complete that even after being shot in 1981 he refused to support new restrictions on guns. Once freed from the constraints of office, he changed his tune once again, coming out in support of the Brady background check law that was named after his press secretary and enacted in 1993.

It was the Brady law and its companion, the assault weapons ban enacted in 1994, that finally scared Democrats into almost total silence on gun control. President Bill Clinton, no slouch as a political analyst, credited his support for these laws with delivering to the Republicans a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time in half a century. Democrats came to believe that even talking about gun control was a sure ticket home come Election Day.

That’s been the conventional wisdom--until Friday. After four years of ignoring gun control – or worse, from the perspective of gun control proponents, expanding gun rights – Obama finally came out with a forceful call for “meaningful action” on guns. In part, this is due to the new political calculus he faces. No longer worried about reelection and appealing to swing state voters, he’s free to take on the NRA. And it may be that after the poor November showing by the NRA, when many of its endorsed candidates lost, fear of the nation’s leading gun organization is waning.

That certainly seems the case given the reactions of other traditionally pro-gun Democrats, like Virginia Senator Mark Warner and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, both of whom have “A” ratings from the NRA but joined Obama’s call to action. If Republican opposition to gun control begins to soften soon, we’ll once again see an important shift in the partisanship of gun control. And Democrats may find themselves one step closer to the stricter gun control regime the party’s sought for nearly a century.

Adam Winkler is a professor at UCLA School of Law and the author of Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America.