The Senate's recent grappling with the highly charged issue of gun control produced expected results. Democrats can talk themselves hoarse on the subject all they want, but it's clear they don't have the votes in Congress to pass anything meaningful before the next election, no matter how many Americans — gay, straight or elementary school age — are slaughtered between now and then.

Monday's votes framed the debate: Democrats will portray Republicans as tools of the National Rifle Association for refusing to take action post-Orlando, and the GOP will counter with weak-tea, barely-there solutions like a bit more money for background checks or a three-day waiting period on gun purchases by terrorism suspects.

Wait, let's rewind that last point. One of the measures offered by Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas would have allowed the federal government to briefly delay the sale of a firearm to a suspected terrorist — in order to, at least theoretically, give authorities time to make a case to a judge that the sale should be denied altogether.

What a wonderful tool for terrorists who might be interested in finding out how the government came to suspect them: Simply attempt to buy a gun and then force the Department of Homeland Security or the Federal Bureau of Investigation to share your case file in open court in order to prove probable cause.

There's obviously a lot of playing to the political base by both sides going on here, but there's something especially discouraging in watching conservatives who normally wear their patriotism on their sleeves loudly defend the rights of suspected terrorists. The so-called “no-fly” list is in the neighborhood of 64,000 souls while the broader “watch” list is around a million. And, of course, the suspected terrorist could always avail himself of the so-called “gun show loophole” and buy that firearm privately without fear of a background check, as Republicans (and a few Democrats) have consistently opposed toughening that provision of federal law as well.

Opponents claim there's a due process problem here, that the denial is at the whim of government and not court-ordered. But there's a balance to be struck between the gun ownership rights of a few and the right of life and liberty of the many. Americans have the right to travel in airplanes without having a shoe bomber on board, so we grudgingly allow the government to search for shoe bombs prior to flights. A balance must be struck.

It shouldn't even require invoking the worst mass shooting in modern history for Americans to want to make it tougher for domestic terrorists to acquire guns. Is that so much to ask? The “no-fly, no buy” measure strikes most people as common sense. It might not have stopped Omar Mateen, but, according to the Government Accountability Office, people on various terrorism watch lists have managed to buy guns and explosives more than 2,400 times since 2004.

A surrender of constitutional rights? Surely, they are more greatly abridged by not being able to travel by air. Let's repeat that thought: Opponents fret that people considered too dangerous to get on the next flight from BWI to Pittsburgh ought to be able to walk into the local firearms dealer and eventually walk out with a Sig Sauer MCX like the one used in Orlando.

With all due respect to Second Amendment absolutists, gun control is an American tradition that works. Even the most ardent NRA type will concede that there are some firearms that ought not to be readily available to all. Fully automatic weapons have been closely regulated in the U.S. since 1934 with considerable success (a law strengthened as recently as 1986). Why? Because they were the preferred weapon of Prohibition era gangsters, the terrorist equivalent of their day. The argument that ordinary Americans needed a Thompson submachine gun to defend their homes didn't rouse much support then or now.

It's difficult to predict exactly how the issue of guns and gun control will play out this election but it's noteworthy that Donald Trump, with his gift for sensing the blue collar zeitgeist, has been backing off his pro-NRA rhetoric of late. Perhaps he's simply following the logic of his own supporters: If the terrorism threat is so serious that we need to invade countries, close borders, deny travel to 1.6 billion Muslims or racially profile those already here, as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee claims, perhaps making it a little tougher for terrorists to arm themselves should not be off the table.