Shootings in US ignite new calls for gun legislation
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — A cluster of recent mass shootings that killed 36 people in California, Texas and Ohio has sparked renewed calls for the US Congress to pass legislation to prevent gun violence.
While Democrats want the Senate to interrupt its five-week summer recess and return to Washington to address the matter immediately, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, has not acted on the request.
Instead, there will likely be moves to advance legislation when Congress returns from summer recess on Sept. 9.
Previous attempts to pass gun controls after mass shootings, including in the aftermath of the December 2012 murder of 20 children and six staff members at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut have mostly failed in the face of fierce lobbying by the National Rifle Association and other gun groups.
Here are some proposals that could be debated in coming months: gun sale background checks.
The Democratic-led House of Representatives in February passed legislation to expand background checks on gun buyers.
A current loophole in federal law allows many sales — perhaps as many as onefifth — over the Internet and at gun shows to go unchecked. While the bill was touted as being bipartisan, only eight Republicans backed it, with 188 voting no.
That does not bode well for the bill’s prospects in the Republican-controlled Senate. Republican Sen.Pat Toomey and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin are trying to resurrect a somewhat weaker version of the bill, which the Senate defeated in 2013.
It exempts from background checks all gun transfers, including sales, between close family members. The Housepassed bill only exempts loans and gifts of firearms between such relatives.
Also passed by the House in February but going nowhere in the Senate is a Democratic bill to extend to 10 days, from the current three business days, the amount of time for a background check if information on an individual is incomplete.
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham, a Republican, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat on the panel, want to create a federal grant program helping states adopt “red flag” laws.
These would allow courts and local law enforcement to remove guns from people who are deemed to present an imminent risk of danger to communities.
Under the procedure, for example, family members or neighbors of a person thought to be owning weapons and a potential danger could tip off authorities, starting the legal process.