The "right" way to involve activists is to harness the energy of the moment, have them screaming down the phones and making demands RIGHT NOW from politicians. And *THEN* maybe a compromise piece of shit bill appears and passes. There can even be kayfabe! Those extremists wanted this crazy stuff, but we settled for Realisitc CommonSense Solutions Of The Bipartisan Kind.
The wrong way is to go on vacation right after a mass shooting, hammer out a piece of shit compromise that probably won't even get the 10 necessary votes, and then say, uh, activists? A little help?
Maybe the best possible result either way is Realistic CommonSense Solutions Of The Bipartisan Kind. But how you get there also matters.
It wasn't always this way. In the aughts there was a lot more openness to activism, a lot more understanding of how it can work by some of the same people who, 18 years later, have forgotten. Pelosi had people around her who understood this. Reid (no longer with us) did too. Some other current senators had a bit more of a fighting spirit than they do now.