Lawmakers who favor gun control are not optimistic about next year even though Democrats may be running Congress and the White House.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), the sponsor of legislation that would reinstate the expired federal assault weapons ban, dismissed the idea that her bill might pass in the 111th Congress.

McCarthy stressed that she is not giving up on reauthorizing the weapons ban that sunsetted in 2004, but also made clear she is not holding her breath.

Other gun control advocates note that they are no longer on defense against a Republican-led Congress.

“We were on the ropes two years ago. [Gun rights groups] had the ball on the 2-yard line and were about to score,” said Paul Helmke, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

“The difference now is that we’ve got the ball but we’ve still got 98 yards to go.”

Helmke praised McCarthy, but said, “Sometimes when you’re too close to it, it’s easy to get discouraged.”

Even if Democrats control the legislative and executive branches next year, it seems unlikely that Democratic leaders will act on major gun control legislation. Instead, they are expected to spend political capital on the Iraq war, healthcare and worker-rights legislation favored by unions.

Democratic presidential candidates have taken pains not to be portrayed as anti-gun, a perception that may have cost former Vice President Al Gore the presidency in 2000. Obama and Clinton have said on the campaign trail that they want to revive the assault weapons ban while also noting their respect for the Second Amendment.

In January, Clinton acknowledged that moving gun control legislation is difficult: “I am against illegal guns, and illegal guns are the cause of so much death and injury in our country. I also am a political realist and I understand that the political winds are very powerful against doing enough to try to get guns off the street …”

Former President Bill Clinton spearheaded the passage of the assault weapons ban that was included in the 1994 crime bill. Some political analysts said the passage of that legislation contributed to the GOP takeover of Congress later that year.

Gun rights groups have given mixed reviews to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who voted against the assault weapons ban in 1994 and its reauthorization a decade later.

House Democrats have not championed major gun control legislation this Congress. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), a gun control advocate, noted that many freshman Democrats — as well as next year’s prospective freshman Democrats — favor gun rights.

He doesn’t expect many more co-sponsors to McCarthy’s bill. “We probably have all the support we’re going to get,” Nadler said of the measure’s 66 backers.

“The national climate has to change,” he said.

Asked when it will, Nadler responded, “When the kid in your town gets killed.”

He admitted, however, that the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech University did not change the political landscape.

Following the shooting spree, Democratic leaders in Congress chose their words carefully and subsequently worked with the National Rifle Association on a relatively modest gun bill.

The gun debate falls mostly along party lines, but there are exceptions. Some Republicans, for example, want the assault weapons ban to be reinstated. McCarthy said she recently talked about the issue with Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.).

Ros-Lehtinen, who voted for the 1994 crime bill, said last week that the need for the assault weapons ban is being discussed in her South Florida district. The Miami Police Department has said that since the ban expired, deaths attributable to assault weapons have more than doubled in Miami-Dade County.

Ros-Lehtinen is not a co-sponsor of McCarthy’s bill, but will back a GOP alternative that is expected to be introduced by Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) later this year.

Democrats are targeting Kirk and Ros-Lehtinen this cycle. Kirk did not comment for this article.

The Republican National Committee (RNC), meanwhile, will be looking to highlight the likely Democratic presidential nominee’s position on guns.

In a release last week, RNC stated, “When will Obama stop pretending to support the Second Amendment and admit he has a long anti-gun record?”

RNC pointed to a string of votes that it says shows that Obama is a staunch gun control advocate.

The Obama campaign did not comment by press time.

Gun rights lobbyists don’t buy the claim that Democrats will not seek new gun laws if they control the White House and Congress.

Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said if gun owners believe that assertion, they would be “falling for a real con job.”

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), another gun control advocate, also has a different opinion about the prospects for next year.

He said that “a Democratic administration would be more receptive to the kinds of reforms we desperately need … Next year could produce real steps towards achieving those goals.”