Some Republicans support tighter background checks
“People in Parkland and all across the country have every reason to be grieved and incredibly furious.”
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla.
WASHINGTON – Some Republican leaders called Sunday for stronger background checks on gun buyers after last week’s mass shooting at a South Florida high school that killed 17 people.
Republicans Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, in separate interviews Sunday, called for Congress to stop making empty promises and act.
Lankford said he supports a bill by the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, to provides financial incentives to states and federal agencies to work harder to comply with laws requiring them to report criminal and mental health records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).
Gun sellers are required, in most circumstances, to run the names of would-be gun buyers through the system to ensure they are not barred from buying firearms. Cornyn introduced the Fix NICS Act last year in response to a mass shooting at a Texas church in November. The shooter had been allowed to buy guns despite having a criminal record because the Air Force failed to share his records with the FBI.
The Senate has yet to act on the bill. The House passed it in December, but only after attaching it to controversial legislation, pushed by the National Rifle Association, that would expand Americans’ right to carry concealed weapons.
“That is the first thing of multiple things that need to be done,” Lankford said on NBC’s Meet the Press With
Chuck Todd. “That is fixing our background check system to make sure that all information is actually getting in there. ... In this (Florida) case, we have a lot of warning signs that were out there. And people in Parkland and all across the country have every reason to be grieved and incredibly furious.”
As recently as January, the FBI received a tip about the suspect, Nikolas Cruz, and his “desire to kill people,” but the information was never acted on, the bureau confirmed Friday.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer blasted President Trump on Sunday for offering a 2019 budget proposal that would cut the federal background check program by $12 million, which amounts to a cut of about 16%. Schumer, D-N.Y., urged Congress to reject the plan.
Cornyn said Thursday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that he planned to sit down with the panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, and its chairman, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, to talk about a strategy for passing his bill to strengthen background checks.
Feinstein said she also wants to talk about banning bump stocks, which are attached to rifles to make them function like automatic weapons. There was talk of banning the devices after the mass shooting at a concert in Las Vegas last October, but Congress never acted.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said Sunday that he would support a ban on bump stocks.
Lankford and most other Republicans have stopped short of supporting a ban on assault weapons or specific types of firearms.
Kasich, a former congressman, said on CNN’s State of the Union that he has little faith the “dysfunctional” Congress will do anything after the Valentine’s Day shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. “Do I think they can do anything on guns? I hope they prove me wrong and they can, because I have no confidence in them.”