LOL that's true. And it's been a minor internet meme.
Newtown was December 14, and here's Joe Scarbarararwhatever on the 17th making his claim that he used to be a big shooter, but now everything has changed:
"From this day forward, nothing can ever be the same again," he said. "... Let this be our true landmark ... politicians can no longer be allowed to defend the status quo."
But he added that Friday "changed everything":
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/17/joe-scarborough-newtown-shooting_n_2315100.html
So that may be the start. If so, then we have a very interesting and disturbing example of the press creating an agitprop talking point, having it repeated back at them by the politicians, and then reporting it *again* as news.
Here's the pattern I see emerging. Looking at El Presidente's early pronouncements, he was saying enough is enough, we need to change, etc. It was future and present tense, though. Then the press came back and announced, in PAST TENSE, that yes indeed everything had CHANGED now and was different. Then that was repeated back to the press by the administration, with push-pulls by the MSM purporting to show that yes, indeed everything was now different and suddenly the old politics were gone and people were ready to march and give their iron up to smiling policemen. Gun control was presented as a certainty, only the details needed to be hammered out. But none of it was real, as became increasingly clear as the months rolled by and actual constituents contacted their reps. So when the votes came in, the bubble universe created by the MSM and the President collided with the actual universe where politicians have to get reelected.
It may also be an example of a massive scale Pauline Kael effect. The MSM lives in isolation, as does the administration. So when the one "gun guy" they know who has an old rifle somewhere and used to hunt with Dad in the 70's suddenly declares he's against the NRA, they take that to mean there's a huge shift in opinion. Nixon could not have won because nobody I know voted for him, in other words.