Could this be the tipping point on guns?

It came as no surprise this week when House Democrats joined hands and sang a few verses of “We Shall Overcome.”

Usually, the Republicans are the culprits when it comes to obstructing the business of Congress. But on Wednesday and Thursday, the Democrats were the ones bringing things to a standstill – resorting to an old-fashioned sit-in to prevent GOP leaders’ efforts to gavel the House into session.

The sit-in started around 11:30 a.m., and by 3:30 p.m. it had grown to about 100 members – all Democrats. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California pledged that they would remain on the floor until they got a vote on gun-control proposals.

Early Thursday afternoon – after Republican leaders adjourned the House until after the July 4 holiday – the Democrats suspended what turned out to be a 26-hour sit-in.

This is an election year, so the motives for the guerrilla theater no doubt included stirring up the Democratic base. But the show of resolve on the part of Democrats – in both the House and Senate – also was spurred by the genuine sense of outrage spurred by the Orlando massacre and disgust at the failure of the Republican-led Congress to address the plague of gun violence.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., led a filibuster lasting nearly 15 hours demanding that the Senate respond to the Orlando shootings. Senate Democrats then forced votes on proposals designed to prevent those on the federal terrorist watch list from buying guns and to expand waiting lists to cover sales at gun shows and other private transactions.

Republicans offered measures that would have required a judge’s ruling before a known or suspected terrorist could be denied from buying a gun, which Democrats labeled as too watered down to be effective. In the end, all the measures fell short of the 60 votes needed to move forward.

The finer points of these bills are worthy of debate. Civil libertarians can justifiably question how far the government can go in limiting a person’s legal access to guns simply because he or she is on a watch list of some kind.

But it’s clear that the Democrats believe this time is different. They are hoping that Americans have finally had enough of the finer points, enough of National Rifle Association-funded obstructionism, enough inaction and foot-dragging when guns claim so many thousands of lives each year.

This sense of “enough” motivated Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., to walk out on the traditional moment of silence called by House Speaker Paul Ryan to honor the victims of the Orlando shootings. Himes, who represents the district that includes Newtown, where a gunman shot 20 schoolchildren and six of their teachers, said he no longer would participate in the charade of a few seconds of silence followed by a return to business as usual.

There is, of course, political maneuvering in all of this. Democrats no doubt already are laying plans to accuse Republican candidates of voting to “allow terrorists to buy guns.” And Republicans facing tight races are worried.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is busy trying to fashion a compromise on the so-called “no-fly, no-buy” bill that fellow Republicans can swallow – one that would give them a fig leaf to deny they were going easy on the terrorists.

But that might not work this time, either. The public might be more fed up with this cavalcade of carnage than the gun-rights crowd realizes.

Orlando might have been the tipping point, the moment that crystallized the thinking of a majority of Americans, the moment they said, “Hey, can’t we do something about this?”

The changes, if they actually do materialize, are likely to be incremental – more background checks, no gun sales to suspected terrorists, a ban on assault rifles. But that would unlock the stranglehold the NRA has on Congress that prevents any reasonable gun safety measures from having a chance of passing.

Democrats are confident enough to stage a sit-in on the floor of Congress. Maybe more of us will join them in singing “We Shall Overcome.”

This story was originally published June 23, 2016 at 3:30 PM with the headline "Could this be the tipping point on guns?."