In its wake, many in the Republican leadership, including Speaker Paul Ryan, are dismissing the Democrat-led “sit in” in the House chamber last Wednesday and Thursday as merely being a “publicity stunt.”

          Of course it was.

          In 1930, the Father of modern India, Mahatma Ghandi, led a 240-mile-long march to the seashore to make salt. Had he been willing to pay a British tax on salt, he could have bought it anywhere. It was a publicity stunt.

          In 1960, four black students sat at a whites’ only Woolworth’s lunch counter and refused to leave. Woolworth lunch counters were not known for four-star cuisine. They could have eaten elsewhere.  It was a publicity stunt.

          For that matter, in 1773, American colonists dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. Had there been a Starbucks, they could have drunk coffee. Had there been enough Samuel Adams lager available, they could have happily thrown themselves into the harbor instead of the tea. It was a publicity stunt.

          A publicity stunt is defined as a planned event designed to attract the public’s attention to the event’s organizers or to their cause. The event itself is not determinative of the final outcome. The importance of the event lies in the chain of events it initiates, which eventually can lead to a determinative outcome.

          In 1947, India achieved its independence, becoming the world’s largest democracy.

          The Woolworth’s sit in is recognized as a major milestone in the modern civil rights era.

          The Boston Tea Party helped give birth to an idea that would become the United States of America.

          In this case, the purpose of the publicity stunt was to draw attention to a need for a meaningful conversation in the House of Representatives about gun violence, and proposed legislation that has the support of 90 percent of the American people, including a majority of Republican citizens, and, reportedly, a majority of American gun owners.

          The Democrat maneuver involving a good old fashioned sit in, let by civil rights icon John Lewis, caught the Republican House leadership flat-footed.

          Not having the time to consult with their superiors at the NRA (which stands for National Rifle Association or National Republican Administrators, I forget which), the leadership floundered around for a few hours like fishes out of water.

          When the leadership ordered the cameras and microphones in the chamber to be shut off, those wily Democrats started providing their own live feeds using the camera function on their cell phones and something called Periscope. Who knew?

          Eventually, the Republican brain trust came up with the idea of trying to get business back on track by holding a late night vote on a motion to override a presidential veto. The veto had to do with a regulation requiring financial advisers to put the interests of their clients before their own personal interests. In effect, the Republican position was that financial advisers had no fiduciary duty to put their clients first. Revealing, what?

          Since it takes a two-thirds vote in the House to override a presidential veto, and since the GOP contingent does not have that many votes, the whole thing was a farce from the beginning.

          And then the Democrats began to sing the civil rights anthem “We shall overcome” with modified lyrics (“We shall pass a bill, some day”). Their performance was not of The Voice quality, but it was apparently enough to cause Speaker Paul Ryan to hurriedly gavel the chamber not only into recess, but into adjournment. Whereupon, Mr. Ryan and the Republicans were free to scurry out of town until July 5.

          All of this was to avoid forcing Republican legislators go on record as being in support of, or in opposition to, legislation that would prevent individuals on no-fly or terrorist watch lists from legally purchasing guns – including semi-automatic guns of mass destruction.

          The GOP’s masters over at the NRA do not want that conversation to begin, for fear of where it might lead. Look at India. Look at the demise of Jim Crow. Look at the rise of America.

          Mr. Ryan is a smart man, and he recovered quickly. By Thursday, he was making pious statements about the Second and Fourth Amendments. He was complaining that the Democrats failed to follow House rules and put the legislation through the committee structure, where, given the fact the Republican majority controls every committee, the proposals would never see the light of day.

          He complained about the damage done to the institution of the House of Representatives, and he is correct. Damage was done, and nothing will ever be the same again. But the damage is of his own making, and is the direct result of his intransigence in bringing to the floor legislation the American people want to see discussed and debated – regardless of the outcome. They can draw their own conclusions.

          The ball is in your court, Speaker Ryan. Come July 5, and in the days and weeks thereafter, to whose will will you bend? The American people, or the sugar daddies over at the NRA.

          To be continued …