Gun control debate 'won't change until someone loses an election for being paid by the NRA': MSNBC host

As cries for gun control once again reach a fever pitch in the wake of the third mass shooting in six months, MSNBC's Chuck Todd pointed out an uncomfortable truth about the political power of the National Rifle Association.

"This debate doesn't change until somebody loses an election because they've been too associated with the NRA," Todd said during a Thursday afternoon panel discussing the Parkland school shooting yesterday that left 17 dead.

Nevertheless, the host wondered aloud if "the events of the last six months create a critical mass."

"I do think that this apparent contagion that we now have of these mass shootings is certainly — it's raising the fear level and it's changing the background of the debate," conservative writer Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review noted. "But is it going to actually change the votes? That has yet to be demonstrated."

Watch below, via MSNBC: