In a normal legislative battle, there comes a point when advocates have to stop letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. When it comes to gun control, the calculus is different: You have to stop letting the adequate be the enemy of the incremental but significant.
That maddening fact is why the recent uproar over assault weapons is so dangerously misplaced. Reinstating the ban was never in the cards. The best that could be realistically hoped for was a Senate floor vote on an assault weapons amendment — a vote doomed to fail.
So pounding Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for announcing that assault weapons would not be part of the proposal he brings to the Senate floor has the situation completely backward.
If Reid had included assault weapons, it would have doomed the larger effort, in particular expanding background checks for gun buyers. Requiring background checks for nearly all gun purchases is a change that is simultaneously more effective than banning assault weapons and more politically achievable.
Which is why the real worry of gun control advocates should be whether the background check measure passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee is too strong to make it to the Senate floor.
It pains me to write this, but this is the legislative reality. The negotiating over background checks is being conducted by Democrats Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin and Republican Tom Coburn.
They largely agree that the requirement for background checks should be expanded to cover most private sales — at gun shows, over the Internet, in other, non-family transactions. This would close a gaping loophole — some estimates are as high as 40 percent of gun transfers.
The National Rifle Association argues that such checks won't deter felons and other ineligible purchasers determined to acquire guns. But the numbers belie that contention: More than 2 million would-be purchasers have been denied since the existing system was launched in 1994.
No doubt people managed to buy guns anyway. But others were likely deterred — and a system of universal checks would make illegal purchases even more difficult.
The real holdup in the negotiation over expanded background checks involves recordkeeping — specifically, whether private sellers should be subjected to the same requirement as licensed firearms dealers.
Of course they should. In a perfect world — that is, in a world without the NRA — guns would be treated like automobiles. Ownership records are computerized and searchable.
Is the record-keeping requirement so essential that it is worth demanding at the risk of losing expanded checks entirely?
Gun control advocates argue that omitting such a requirement would make the expanded checks toothless, leading sellers to ignore them altogether. Some probably would.
A second argument for recordkeeping is that it helps police trace guns used in crimes. Again, true. But the point of background checks isn't to solve gun crimes — it's to prevent them.
The criticisms of recordkeeping — unduly burdensome, a step down the slippery slope to gun registry — are specious and paranoid. That's infuriating but irrelevant. Background checks with recordkeeping won't get the 60 votes necessary to pass the Senate. Background checks without recordkeeping will.
I'm reliably told that the NRA may not actively oppose expanded checks without recordkeeping. Such a measure would be a huge, if imperfect, achievement — one to be seized, not squandered.
Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcuswashpost.com.