Guns may not have been the primary focus of the Democratic National Convention (DNC), but they featured far more prominently than at its Republican counterpart.

The DNC started with the party platform expanding its section on gun control and ended with Kamala Harris promising to push for an AR-15 ban. In between, keynote speakers from President Joe Biden to former President Bill Clinton to Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz highlighted guns in their speeches. The major gun-control groups got an official panel, and Gabby Giffords spoke in primetime just before Harris herself.

That’s completely different from how the Republicans approached guns during the RNC last month. Republicans dropped all of the gun policy promises from their platform. They didn’t feature any speakers from a major gun-rights group. Then, Trump snubbed the issue in his record-long acceptance speech.

So, the contrast is pretty stark. But that’s more a result of Republican reluctance around the issue than Democratic exuberance.

Democrats didn’t make guns the top issue of the convention. It’s just that Republicans didn’t make it an issue at all. The closest they got was Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance’s anecdote about finding 19 loaded guns in his Meemaw’s home after she passed away.

It also doesn’t betray a real strategic shift by either party on gun policy. Even though Harris has a record to the left of President Joe Biden on guns, she hasn’t moved the campaign to the left on gun policy. In fact, her campaign has moved her position to the right by walking back her push for a mandatory buyback of “assault weapons.”

“Correct, the VP will not push for a mandatory buy back as president,” Lauren Hitt, a Harris spokesperson, told The Reload in July. “She has expressed support for red flag laws, universal background checks and an assault weapons ban.”

Similarly, Trump’s RNC silence on guns hasn’t preceded a noticeable policy shift. While he seems to be downplaying the issue in high-profile events, he has been willing to attack Harris on guns and make promises directly to gun owners in events tailored for them. That may be the way he approaches the issue from here until election day.

“She wants to take away everyone’s gun,” Trump said of Harris earlier this month. “If you take away guns… can’t do it because people need guns for protection.”

Trump did renew his call for stop-and-frisk gun seizures this week, but he’d already done that as President. And he’d even backed a “red flag” policy at one point. The sparse discussion of gun policy during the last few months of the campaign hasn’t been accompanied by any new policy proposals.

So, the contrast between each side is noticeable but not really indicative of a shift in the gun policy fight. Instead, it’s more indicative of a shift in how the parties view gun politics.

For Democrats, the shift began back in 2012. It accelerated in 2018. And it really peaked with the Biden Campaign in 2020, when he ran as the moderate in the race by merely endorsing an assault weapons ban rather than the confiscation favored by Harris and others. Democrats have shed the minority of the party that opposed significant gun restrictions and embraced gun control as a key litmus test for candidates.

There’s nobody that better exemplifies that shift than Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz, who completely reversed his views on guns when he moved from Congress to the Minnesota Governor’s Mansion in 2018.

For Republicans, the shift seems much more recent. In 2016, the platform had a series of gun policy promises, and the NRA’s top lobbyist spoke at the RNC. Trump seemed to hold the group in high regard, speaking at every NRA Annual Meeting since announcing his candidacy. He even spoke again at this year’s conference in May, but that’s when his outlook seems to have started to change. That’s where he first started signaling he isn’t confident gun voters are going to make a difference for him.

“The gun owners don’t vote,” he told NRA members. “It’s so crazy. I would think that they would vote more than any other group of people and it’s just the opposite. They don’t vote.”

He’s repeated that several message times since then. And it’s the messaging change that preceded the quieter approach to the issue.

Republicans shrinking away from the issue is a bit odd. For one, while some gun-rights advocates have claimed gun owners don’t vote in high enough numbers, most political analysts have long viewed them as a potent political force because they tend to be more motivated by gun policy than those who support new restrictions. But the polling, limited as it is, indicates Americans care about gun policy and are pretty split on it going into the election.

The latest CBS News/YouGov poll found 58 percent of likely voters said gun policy would have a “major impact” on their vote. It found Democrats were 13 points more likely to ID gun policy as a major factor in their vote than Republicans. Additionally, liberals were nine points more likely than Conservatives to say the same. However, the most recent Fox News poll found a majority of registered voters thought he’d handle gun policy better than Harris.

So, it’s easy to see why Democrats are contesting the issue, but it’s hard to understand why the Trump Campaign is shying away from gun policy. Whatever the reason, the result is striking.