It’s never been about the money, that’s just an easy scapegoat for someone not wanting to admit that they lost on any given issue. It’s really easy to say “evil corporations bought the law/result they wanted” than admit that a highly engaged voting base was behind it.

That’s absolutely it, before the NRA gave up on promoting gun rights and imploded its political power never came from “buying politicians with industry money.” It came from a large pool of highly active voters with a shared primary issue. Their report card was more effective than any donation or individual campaign. Mobilizing large groups of voters is far more powerful than deep pockets. That’s also why nothing has changed since their collapse, pro-gun voters had been jumping ship to more effective groups for more than two election cycles now. “Defeating the NRA” didn’t result in a gun control win because by the end the NRA’s corruption did more to hurt gun rights than anything Bloomberg could buy; ripping that bandaid off entirely allowed the community to rebound even harder.