Republicans, here’s a chance to be brave

Michael A. Lindenberger says GOP lawmakers could win on gun control — and possible alter the political landscape — if only they’ll take it.

Is anyone surprised Republicans are feeling heat over the massacres in El Paso and Dayton last week?

Soul-sick with the murders and mass shootings, Americans are asking the Republicans, from Donald Trump to Mitch McConnell to their congresswoman down the street: Will you finally put aside your tired, failed excuses and begin to talk about reasonable restrictions on an out-ofcontrol gun culture?

Remarkably, there are signs that the

GOP leadership is listening. President Trump is talking background checks and red-flag laws. Senate Majority Leader McConnell said a new ban on assault rifles will be debated in the Senate, a place where nearly every piece of gun control legislation since the 1994 assault-rifle ban has gone to die.

Few know quite what to make of the sudden shift. Has the GOP really fallen out of love with the NRA? Has that scandalplagued lobbying organization finally overshot its mark? Or are Republicans looking at the 2020 elections and seeing disaster if they don’t finally find a new storyline to replace the one where they are forever on the gun lobby’s leash?

Some Democrats warn it’s a distraction. And they aren’t wrong to note that Trump has touted moderate reform before — on health care, immigration, and even on gun control — only to reverse course at the last moment. He’s so mercurial, he’s flummoxed not just moderate Democrats willing to work with him but his own party. Remember the talk of a bill full of love for the Dreamers? A better health insurance law? His scolding of the GOP for being afraid of the NRA?

All talk.

Others view McConnell with suspicion. He could already be rehearsing his speech blaming the collapse of gun reform on greedy Democrats who wanted too much.

All of that makes sense. The window to do something about guns is brief. And the forces against it are mighty.

Remember Sandy Hook? Our hearts were just as broken in 2012, with all those children slaughtered and the nation just as angry. People demanded gun reform, and lawmakers and the White House got busy.

Two bills were brought forward, and both had the support of the president. One would have created a new and more effective assault-rifle ban. The other would have expanded background checks. Neither passed. Fifteen Democrats joined every Republican but one to sink the assault-rifle ban. It failed 40-60. And five Democrats joined 41 Republicans to defeat the background bill 54-46 in a chamber where 60 votes was needed to win.

Guess who was president then? Not Donald Trump.

But things could change. We’re not doomed to live in the same cycles we’ve run before.

America, we’re in a moment. Ever since the world discovered First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, we’ve had a chance to get real on gun control. The opportunity turned red-hot after the shootings at Parkland High School in Florida and Santa Fe High in Texas.

The GOP, led by Trump, flirted with gun control, but quickly returned to business as usual. Texas lawmakers, reeling from three major massacres since November 2017, met in Austin and left after having handed the NRA everything it wanted and nothing it didn’t. That’s where things stood until last Saturday.

Now we have another chance.

What if the Republicans mean what they say this time? What if McConnell really does allow a debate on assault rifles, which polls say even half of Republican voters support? Then the Democrats might have some trouble — and it won’t matter that they’ve been on the right side of this issue for so long.

Nixon went to China. Trump and McConnell could ban assault rifles.

The NRA would squeal, but let ’em. The Democrats are the ones that would be caught flat-footed. It’d be the biggest political about-face in Washington since Bill Clinton balanced the budget, passed welfare reform and signed into law the largest free-trade bill in a generation or more.