Murphy: Senate not likely to pass background check bill
NEWTOWN — In March, when the House passed legislation to expand firearm background checks, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy predicted there were enough votes in the Democratic-controlled Senate to send the bill newly elected President Joe Biden to sign.
Today, as the ninth anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre approaches, Murphy concedes the “low likelihood of success,” that legislation expanding background checks to all gun shows and online sales will come to a vote under the Senate’s rules.
That’s despite the latest shooting in Michigan last week that left four high school students dead.
The reason: the Senate’s filibuster rule requires a three-fifth’s majority of 60 senators to end deliberations and force a vote.
“The fact of the matter is we have the votes in the House and the Senate for a universal background checks bill, and we have a president who will sign it — it’s the rules of the Senate that prevent us from passing it,” Murphy told CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday. “We probably have 52, 53, 54 votes in the Senate for this, so the rules right now are what prevent us from being able to enact the will of the public.”
The Newtown-based trade association for firearms industry disagrees, calling the legislation unnecessary, unworkable and an undue burden on law-abiding gun owners.
“The universal background check bill is flawed legislation. That is why it does not have the support of more than half the Senate,” said Mark Oliva, director of public affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation. “The legislation wouldn’t work without the creation of a national firearms registry, which would put every law-abiding gun owner on a government watchlist simply for exercising a God-given and Constitutionally-protected right.”
Democrats have a majority over Republicans in the evenly split 100-member Senate, because Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, casts the tie-breaking vote.
Murphy suggested during a speech on the Senate floor last week that most voters were united on the issue of expanded background checks.
“Our constituents — Republicans and Democrats — support measures like universal background checks,” Murphy said on Thursday. “In fact, there’s almost nothing in the political world that enjoys such high support as universal background checks; 80, 90 percent of Americans — the majority of Republicans, Democrats, gun owners and non-gun owners — support universal background checks.”
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal agreed.
“There is no rational explanation — none — when the vast majority of American people, gun owners as well as N.R.A. members, all backgrounds, all walks of life, all geographic areas, all demographic areas support this measure,” Rosenthal said in a prepared statement. “The members (of Congress) who vote against these measures are complicit in the tragedies that follow.”
An activist from one of Newtown’s home-grown nonprofits said there were no plans to give up.
“We will continue to advocate for the Senate Democrats to end the filibuster — not only to pass universal background checks but to pass the safe storage act and the ban on assault weapons,” said Po Murray, chairwoman of the Newtown Action Alliance.
Murphy told CNN’s Tapper as much on Sunday.
“This is, I think, one of the great social change movements of this nation’s history and we can’t let failure or obstacles stop us,” Murphy said, referring to the gun violence prevention movement. “If we don’t change the rules of the Senate then we are ultimately going to need 60 votes, so we need to continue to build up our political power around the country.”