Democrats push for new gun measures
Washington’s nascent debate over gun safety devolved into a partisan round of name-calling Tuesday, as Democrats and Republicans accused one another of playing politics with a life-ordeath issue, dimming hopes for a quick compromise to address the wave of mass shootings that have terrorized the country.
On their first full day back in the Capitol after a lengthy August recess, Democrats sought to intensify political pressure on Republicans to embrace tougher gun restrictions, while also laying the foundation for making gun violence a central issue of their 2020 campaigns should a compromise falter. House Democrats pushed forward with new legislation a new package of gun restrictions, including a bill that would ban the manufacture and sale of large-capacity magazines, and sharpened their calls for Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, to take up a bill they approved in February expanding background checks to all gun buyers.
But McConnell insisted, as he has in the past, that he would not take up any legislation unless President Donald Trump agreed to sign it into law. Speaking to reporters at the Capitol, he took aim at his Democratic counterpart, Sen. Chuck Schumer, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, dismissing their demands as a “stunt.” Trump, he noted, had long ago said he would veto the House-passed background check bill.
“You all, I know, do cover theatrics,” he told reporters. “But on a serious issue like this, after these horrendous shootings dominating the month of August, at least we could come back with a level of seriousness that underscored that maybe we would like to get an outcome. And so we do, in fact, await word from the White House about what the president is willing to sign.”
Schumer, asked to respond, sounded furious.
“Shame on him,” he said, his voice rising. “There are people who died. Put the bill on the floor and stop ducking the issue.”
Republican leaders, who like McConnell are reluctant to endorse any measure without the president expressing a willingness to go along, met with Trump on Tuesday afternoon at the White House.
Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican, said that gun violence was discussed at the meeting but suggested that Republicans were more interested in making the existing background check system “work better” than they were in expanding it.
But at least one Republican, Sen. Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, who is leading a push for a bipartisan background check bill in the Senate, struck an optimistic note. Toomey, whose bill fell to a filibuster in 2013, said he has spoken with Trump about a half-dozen times and described the president as “very engaged.”
Toomey said some newly elected Republicans were open to his measure and that other Republicans who previously voted against it were rethinking their positions. And without explicitly saying so, he seemed to reject McConnell’s notion that senators should not consider a bill unless it had a chance of becoming law.
Gun safety has rocketed to the top of Washington’s agenda after a string of mass shootings in August — three in Texas alone. According to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks gun violence in the United States, there have been 283 mass shootings so far in 2019.
On Tuesday afternoon, the House Judiciary Committee headed toward approving its gun safety package, the first step toward bringing it to the floor for a vote. It includes a so-called redflag law aimed at making it easier for law enforcement to take away guns from those deemed dangerous by a judge; a measure barring people convicted of hate crimes from buying guns; and legislation barring, for civilian use, magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds.