US senators unveiled a bill Tuesday addressing the epidemic of gun violence plaguing the country as they locked down a narrow set of reforms nevertheless hailed as the first significant federal firearms controls in a generation.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The country has long endured a numbing succession of mass shootings at schools, places of worship and public gathering places. None forced Congress to react with significant legislation — until now.
Last month, a white shooter was accused of racist motives in the killings of 10 Black people in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. Another gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
The slayings of shoppers and school children just 10 days apart — innocents engaged in every day activities — helped prompt a visceral public demand for Congress to do something, lawmakers of both parties say. Bargainers produced a bipartisan gun violence bill that the Senate is moving toward approving later this week, with House action expected sometime afterward.
Here's a look at the confluence of factors that helped to produce a compromise.
How did we get to a compromise on major gun violence legislation?
1. Republican motivation
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This is an election year. Republicans are favored to take over the House, now narrowly controlled by Democrats, and have a solid chance of capturing the 50-50 Senate.
To reinforce their chances, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., knows they need to attract moderate voters like suburban women who will decide competitive races in states like Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.
Taking steps aimed at reducing mass shootings helps the GOP demonstrate it is responsive and reasonable — an image tarnished by former President Donald Trump and the hard-right deniers of his 2020 election defeat.
Underscoring the focus he prefers, McConnell lauded the gun agreement by pointedly telling reporters Wednesday that it takes significant steps to address “the two issues that I think it focuses on, school safety and mental health."
The bill would spend $8.6 billion on mental health programs and over $2 billion on safety and other improvements at schools, according to a cost estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The analysts estimated its overall cost at around $13 billion, more than paid for by budget savings it also claims.
But it also makes the juvenile records of gun buyers aged 18 to 20 part of background checks required to buy firearms, bars guns for convicted domestic abusers not married to or living with their victims and strengthens penalties for gun trafficking. It finances violence prevention programs and helps states implement laws that help authorities temporarily take guns from people deemed risky.
2. Democrats want middle ground, too
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The measure lacks stronger curbs backed by Democrats like banning the assault-style rifles used in Buffalo, Uvalde and other massacres and the high-capacity ammunition magazines those shooters used.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday that this time, Democrats decided they would not “hold a vote on a bill with many things we would want but that had no hope of getting passed.” That's been the pattern for years.
Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy (pictured) of Connecticut and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, led negotiators in talks that lasted four weeks. Their accord is Congress' most important gun violence measure since the now-expired assault weapons ban enacted in 1993.
For almost 30 years, “both parties sat in their respective corners, decided it was politically safer to do nothing than to take chances," Murphy told reporters. He said Democrats needed to show “we were willing to put on the table some things that brought us out of our comfort zone.”
3. Gun rights voters
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Gun rights defenders are disproportionately Republican, and the party crosses them at its own risk. Trump, possibly gearing up for a 2024 presidential run, issued a statement calling the compromise “the first step in the movement to TAKE YOUR GUNS AWAY.”
McConnell took pains to say that the measure “does not so much as touch the rights of the overwhelming majority of American gun owners who are law-abiding citizens of sound mind.”
Even so, the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups oppose the compromise in what will be a test of their influence.
Supporting this legislation may not doom Republicans with pro-gun voters.
McConnell and Cornyn have talked about GOP polling showing that gun owners overwhelmingly back many of the bill's provisions. And those voters are likely to be angry about sky-high gasoline prices and inflation and could vote Republican anyway.
4. Wins for both sides
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Around two-thirds of the Senate's 50 Republicans are expected to oppose the gun measure. But congressional approval would be a GOP win by hindering Democrats from using gun violence in their campaigns, said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. "Taking this off the table as a potential issue for Democrats puts the focus squarely back on inflation again and the economy,” Newhouse said.
Not so, says Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin. He said approval will let Democrats tout an accomplishment running Congress and demonstrate they can work across party lines. Democrats can still campaign against Republicans for opposing tougher measures like assault weapons curbs, issues where “Democrats clearly have the high political ground,” Garin said.
Fourteen Republicans including Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted Tuesday to move the legislation a step toward passage. It is probably telling that she and Indiana Sen. Todd Young were the only two facing reelection this fall. Three are retiring and eight including McConnell, Cornyn and Tillis don’t run again until 2026.
5. What lawmakers heard
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Senators say they've been struck by a different mood back home.
No. 2 Senate Democratic leader Richard Durbin of Illinois said some people he's long known told him that “maybe it's time to take my kids out of this country," which he called incredible. “That they would even consider that possibility tells you how desperate families are” after the recent shootings.
“What I heard for the first time was, ‘Do something,'" Murkowski said. “And it wasn’t, ‘Ban this, do that,' it was, ‘Do something.'"
That wasn't true for everyone. Republican Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, where guns are widely popular, said of his constituents, “They want to make sure their Second Amendment rights are defended," the constitutional provision that lets people keep firearms.
About the photo: Gun control advocates protest in Christopher Columbus Park, Saturday, June 11, 2022, in Boston. Thousands of people are rallying across the country in a renewed push for gun control measures after recent deadly mass shootings.
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The Senate gun deal: What's in and what's out?
Intro
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The outline of a bipartisan Senate agreement on reining in gun violence has no game-changing steps banning the deadliest firearms. But it does propose measured provisions that could make it harder for some young gun buyers, or people considered threatening, to have weapons. And there are meaningful efforts to address mental health and school safety concerns. There's pressure on both parties to act after last month's mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. But details of the plan remain in negotiation between Democrats and Republicans, with disagreements over how tightly the initiatives should be drawn. Here's a look at where things stand.
Here's what's in and out of the agreement:
A strengthening, narrowly, of background checks
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When people age 18 to 20 try buying firearms, the required federal background check would for the first time include their juvenile crime and mental health records. To allow time for getting data from state and local authorities, the process' current three-day maximum would be extended up to seven more days, according to aides following the talks. Once the 10 days lapse, the buyer could get the weapon, even if the record search is incomplete.
Currently, dealers considered in the "business" of selling guns are required to get federal firearms licenses. Such sellers must conduct background checks. Bargainers want to cover more people who, while not running a formal business, occasionally sell weapons.
Other measured curbs
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The framework calls for grants to help states enforce or enact "red flag" laws that let authorities get court orders temporarily taking guns from people deemed dangerous. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have such statutes, but some lack funds to enforce them robustly.
Penalties would be toughened for so-called straw purchasers, those buying guns for others who don't qualify. More current or former romantic partners convicted of domestic abuse, or targeted with restraining orders by their victims, would be barred from getting guns. The ban applies today if the couple was married, lived together or had children together.
Inclusion of the tougher restrictions against straw purchasers and estranged partners were surprises because they'd been blocked by Republicans before.
Addressing broader problems
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Democrats say there will be billions of dollars to expand mental health initiatives. This would pay for more community behavioral health centers, strengthened suicide prevention and violence intervention efforts and increased access to mental telehealth visits.
There would be new sums for school safety. These could include better security at building entrances, training for staff and violence prevention programs. The dollar amount is unclear.
About the photo: New Washington, Ohio, Chief of Police Scott Robertson talks with fourth grade students as they huddle in closet a during a lockdown drill at the St. Bernard School in New Washington, Ohio, Jan. 14, 2013.
Hurdles ahead
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Democrats responsive to constituents who strongly favor gun curbs want the new law to be as stringent as possible. Republicans want nothing that would turn their adamantly pro-gun voters against them.
This means tough bargaining on the fine print of the legislation.
How narrowly will a new definition of which sellers need federal firearms licenses be written? Are there limits on which juvenile records would be accessible during background checks for younger buyers?
What conditions would states have to meet to qualify for "red flag" funds? What legal protections would people have if the authorities consider them too risky to have firearms?
How much money will the package cost? No one has said, though people familiar with the discussions say a ballpark $15 billion is possible. And how will it be paid for?
A leader of the effort, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told reporters Monday that bargainers plan to pay for the costs with offsetting spending cuts or new revenues. The latter could be a no-go for Republicans.
Leaders hope the package can be written and approved before Congress begins its July 4 recess.
What's out?
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President Joe Biden has proposed reviving the 1994 assault weapons ban, which expired after a decade, or raising the minimum age for buying one from 18 to 21. He wants to ban high-capacity magazines.
He'd repeal the legal immunity from liability protecting gun makers. He wants safe storage requirements for guns and a federal "red-flag" law to cover states without one.
None of those made it into the bill; nor did universal background checks. Biden backs the agreement anyway in the name of a compromise that would produce an achievement.
Prospects ahead?
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Ten senators from each party joined in announcing the gun outline and saying they backed it. Those numbers are not a coincidence.
They signal potentially enough support for passage by the 50-50 Senate, where Democrats will need at least 10 GOP backers to reach the usual 60-vote threshold. Besides Murphy, the other lead negotiators were Sens. John Cornyn (pictured), R-Texas, Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C.
Approval in the Democratic-run House is expected, though complications could always emerge.
More restrictions?
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Another bargainer, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (left), D-Conn., said he hopes Republicans will see that "the gun lobby is weaker than they think." But there are signs that approving future restrictions will be challenging.
For one thing, this spurt of action on guns is Congress' most significant since the now-expired assault weapons ban was enacted three decades ago. That spotlights how hardened positions can be lasting.
Another clue is the makeup of the agreement's 20 announced supporters. Blumenthal and Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., are the only two running for reelection this year.
Four others, all Republicans, are retiring in January: Sens. Roy Blunt of Missouri, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Rob Portman of Ohio and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.
The rest don't face reelection until 2024 or 2026.
They are Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Mitt Romney of Utah.
The Democrats are Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Chris Coons of Delaware, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.
Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, allied with Democrats, also backed the proposal.
Ethical Life podcast: What do hunters say about increased gun regulations?
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The 10 Republicans: Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri
Sen. Richard Burr, R-North Carolina
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Sen. Richard Burr, R-North Carolina
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pennsylvania
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Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pennsylvania
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah
The 10 Democrats: Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona
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Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona
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Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona
Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey
Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware
Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico
Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine
