Advocates seek Biden push on gun control

President has yet to forcefully and publicly back a bill passed by House on expanding gun background checks.

After President Joe Biden’s giant COVID-19 relief bill passed Congress, he made a prime-time address to the nation and presided over a Rose Garden ceremony.

But there wasn’t so much as a statement from the White House after the House passed legislation that would require background checks for gun purchases, a signature Democratic issue for decades.

Biden’s views on gun regulation have evolved along with his party — at one point reluctant to impose too many restrictions that blue-collar Democrats opposed — to a near-unanimous call to do something about gun violence after a spate of mass shootings.

Prospects iffy

In the early months of Biden’s presidency, even popular proposals like background checks are lower on his list of priorities and their prospects in the Senate cloudy.

The two bills that passed the House last week would expand background checks on gun purchases, the first significant movement on gun control since Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress and the White House.

They are among a number of major bills House Democrats have pushed through in recent weeks, including legislation to expand voting rights and support union organizing, that now face an uncertain fate in the Senate. Supporters of the background check bills are hoping to see Biden become more actively involved.

“I hope and I expect that President Biden will be willing to get engaged in hand to hand advocacy in the Senate on background checks,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D- Conn.

While Biden was more conservative on gun issues early in his Senate career, in the mid-1990s he helped pass the Brady bill, which mandated federal background checks for gun purchases, and he wrote the 1994 crime bill that included a 10-year assault weapons ban.

Statements of support

During his presidential campaign, Biden embraced an expansive guncontrol agenda, backing an assault weapons ban and buyback program that was once seen as highly controversial and won’t see action in a divided Congress.

On the third anniversary of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting last month, Biden issued a statement reiterating his support for such measures, prompting the National Rifle Association to label him “increasingly hostile” towards gun rights.

“Today, I am calling on Congress to enact commonsense gun law reforms, including requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high- capacity magazines, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets,” Biden said in the statement.

But the bills that just passed the House received meager GOP support there and face a much tougher road in the Senate, where 10 Republicans would have to join all 50 Democrats and independents for them to move toward passage.

Rep. Jim Clyburn, DS. who sponsored one of the bills, suggested Democrats would have to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for passing legislation to move them along.

“I think it’s about time for us to get rid of the filibuster,” Clyburn said in an interview.