The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Sens. Murphy, Blumenthal still waiting for Donald Trump to come back to earth on guns.
WASHINGTON — Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, lawyers by training, are in the political business. But on the gun issue, a Ph.D. in psychology might be more helpful than a law degree in figuring out President Donald Trump’s daytoday gyrations on universal background checks for all gun purchases.
Soon after the El Paso and Dayton mass shootings, Trump was confident “meaningful” background checks would happen and that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, RKy. — a steady opponent — was “totally on board.”
Then, after a workover or two by NRA chieftain Wayne LaPierre, Trump was back to talking about mental illness (rather than gun abundance) as the chief culprit. And several times he repeated the old NRA saw about guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
Background checks? “People don’t realize we have very strong background checks right now.”
By Wednesday, it was back to all doors are open. “We are going to be doing background checks,” he told reporters before departure to Kentucky. “We already have very strong background checks but we are going to be filling in some of the loopholes.”
Are the “loopholes” the private gun transactions at gun shows and elsewhere? The exact same ones that Murphy, Blumenthal and others are intent on closing? Can’t say for sure.
(By Friday, Murphy said tighter background checks have less than a 5050 chance of passing this year, he said in a press conference in Hartford.)
Murphy is trying to get in some family vacation time at his parents’ summer place in Old Lyme. But he can hardly be blamed for keeping his phone close at all times, waiting for it to ring with “White House” lighting up the screen.
Murphy took the lead among Senate Democrats in talking to Trump on the phone about expanded background checks in the wake of El Paso and Dayton. Murphy said he warned Trump that if the White House lets the NRA and GOP progun stalwarts on Capitol Hill dictate the terms, there’s no deal to broker.
In public, Trump has poohpoohed any concern over the NRA and even boasted the progun folks will bend to his will.
But it turned out to be the tail that was wagging the dog. Or was it?
Murphy, for one, has dismissed the mental health argument as a red herring, saying the U.S. doesn’t have higher rates of mental illness than any other Western nation but it does have much higher rates of gun violence and deaths.
But after a week of radar silence and a phone not ringing, Murphy was ready to admit it looks like he’s been jilted.
“We’ve been here before, after Parkland (in 2018 in Florida) when the president made a commitment on background checks and then backed away after being lobbied by the NRA,” Murphy said in a statement. “Until I hear directly from him, I’m not willing to concede that history repeated itself and that he has walked away from the commitment he made. But it’s time for Republicans and President Trump to decide whose side they’re on.”
For his part, Blumenthal has used the phrase “we’ve seen this movie before” so often that you’d think he was auditioning for a guest host spot on Turner Classic Movies.
But this movie has more plot twists than “Maltese Falcon,” more usual suspects than “Casablanca,” and more questionable gun acquisitions than “Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” Since it’s taking place in Washington, you could call it “Town without Pity.” Oh, wait, that’s already a movie title, from 1961., Blumenthal came forth with a statement earlier in the week, with no mention of “we’ve seen this movie before.’’ But maybe it wasn’t necessary.
“I’m deeply disappointed — if not entirely surprised — that President Trump again reversed his rhetoric on background checks,” Blumenthal said. President Trump’s backtracking is a setback, but it isn’t the end of the line. No matter how inconsistent or equivocal the president may be, the American people are steadfast in their support of background checks and other commonsense measures.”