“Dealing With A Supine Congress”: Will The GOP Be Allowed To Block Background Checks?
Is Congress on the verge of turning away from the lessons of the slaughter in Newtown even as Connecticut enacts sweeping laws to curb gun violence? Is the gun lobby hellbent on aligning our country with such great friends of liberty as Iran, North Korea and Syria by opposing efforts to condition international gun sales on the human rights records of buyers?
The gun lobby seems to want the rest of the world to look upon the United States of America as a nation so crazed about guns that its supine Congress will always collapse before the National Rifle Association.
The bleak future envisioned by the gun extremists was laid out for all to see by the small town of Nelson, Ga., whose council voted Monday to require all its citizens to own guns. The town says it won’t enforce the measure, but Nelson sends us a dark message: Guns matter more than freedom. The right not to bear arms can be infringed freely.
The vote in the United Nations on Tuesday for a global convention to keep conventional arms out of the hands of human rights violators, terrorists and organized-crime figures was overwhelming, 154 to 3, with 23 abstentions. North Korea, Iran and Syria provided the no votes, while China and Russia were among the abstainers.
It will be years at best before the treaty is implemented, and the NRA (of course) wants to block its ratification by the Senate — in effect, preventing background checks for human rights violators. But we can be proud that the United States ignored the weapons fundamentalists and voted yes.
Meanwhile, on a bipartisan basis, the Connecticut General Assembly was moving to pass a broad background-check bill that would also regulate the private sales of shotguns and rifles, ban high-capacity magazines and expand the list of prohibited assault weapons.
Connecticut Republicans should lobby members of their party in the U.S. Senate. These days, the GOP is all about trying to improve its image. But on guns, it may prove once again that when it matters, extremists rule.
Only one Republican senator, Mark Kirk of Illinois, has had the courage to work with Democrats for a meaningful background-check law. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has shown some boldness in negotiating on a bill with Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y). But Coburn has yet to close a deal that wouldn’t severely weaken background-check requirements. Otherwise, GOP senators have declined to engage seriously.
There has been much speculation about whether President Obama should have moved even faster after Newtown. And yes, it would have been better if gun-control advocates had united two months ago behind a focused agenda that the president could have pushed immediately.
But contrary to the late-inning analysis you’re hearing, the game isn’t over.
A lot has been said about the four to six Senate Democratic holdouts on background checks, but Democrats are likely to provide roughly 50 votes for a strong bill. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a traditional NRA supporter, deserves particular kudos for his persistence on behalf of a decent outcome. The real barrier in the Senate comes from Republicans. The question for many of them is whether they honestly think that letting weapons manufacturers dictate the party’s positions on gun violence is a recipe for renewal.
Based on what they have said, a host of GOP senators just might find the daring to tell their party that gutting a background-check bill is foolish, substantively and politically. Their ranks include John McCain, who has been brave on this issue in the past, as well as Pat Toomey, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Jeff Flake, Mike Johanns, Dean Heller, Johnny Isakson, Saxby Chambliss, Lamar Alexander, Bob Corker and Rob Portman. They hold the key.
Farther down the road, gun-control advocates need even more discipline, and they cannot stop organizing after this fight is over. It will take years to build the kind of muscle the gun lobby has. Doing so will create the political space for other measures, including an assault weapons ban.
The good news is that the mobilization for gun sanity is farther along now than it has ever been. Members of this anti-violence coalition have proved their strength in Connecticut, Colorado and New York, and they should keep pursuing progress at the state level. Change will eventually bubble up to the halls of Congress.
We are in a long battle. Victory in this round is well within reach. Future victories will require staying power, not recriminations.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, April 3, 2013
“Gun Lobby Goons At It Again”: The NRA’s Disarming Plan To Arm Schools
The gun-lobby goons were at it again.
The National Rifle Association’s security guards gained notoriety earlier this year when, escorting NRA officials to a hearing, they were upbraided by Capitol authorities for pushing cameramen. The thugs were back Tuesday when the NRA rolled out its “National School Shield” — the gun lobbyists’ plan to get armed guards in public schools — and this time they were packing heat.
About 20 of them — roughly one for every three reporters — fanned out through the National Press Club, some in uniforms with gun holsters exposed, others with earpieces and bulges under their suit jackets.
In a spectacle that officials at the National Press Club said they had never seen before, the NRA gunmen directed some photographers not to take pictures, ordered reporters out of the lobby when NRA officials passed and inspected reporters’ briefcases before granting them access to the news conference.
The antics gave new meaning to the notion of disarming your critics.
By journalistic custom and D.C. law, of course, reporters don’t carry guns to news conferences — and certainly not when the person at the lectern is the NRA’s Asa Hutchinson, an unremarkable former congressman and Bush administration official whom most reporters couldn’t pick out of a lineup. But the NRA wasn’t going to leave any doubt about its superior firepower.
Thus has it gone so far in the gun debate in Washington. The legislation is about to be taken up in Congress, but by most accounts the NRA has already won. Plans for limiting assault weapons and ammunition clips are history, and the prospects for meaningful background checks are bleak. Now, The Post’s Philip Rucker and Ed O’Keefe report, the NRA is proposing language to gut the last meaningful gun-control proposal, making gun trafficking a federal crime. Apparently, the gun lobby thinks even criminals deserve Second Amendment protection.
If the NRA has its way, as it usually does, states will soon be weakening their gun laws to allow more guns in schools. The top two recommendations Hutchinson announced Tuesday involved firearms in the schoolhouse. The first: “training programs” for “designated armed school personnel.” The second: “adoption of model legislation by individual states to allow for armed school personnel.”
Hutchinson claimed that his task force, which came up with these ideas, had “full independence” from the NRA. By coincidence, the proposals closely matched those announced by the NRA before it formed and funded the task force. The task force did scale back plans to protect schools with armed volunteer vigilantes, opting instead for arming paid guards and school staff — at least one in every school. States and school districts “are prepared” to pay for it, Hutchinson declared.
The task force garnished the more-guns recommendations with some good ideas, such as better fencing, doors and security monitoring for schools, and more mental-health intervention. But much of that is in the overall Senate legislation that the NRA is trying to kill.
To close his case, Hutchinson introduced a secret weapon, “special guest” Mark Mattioli, the father of one of the Newtown, Conn., victims. Mattioli told reporters that there had been “nine school shootings since Newtown” but that Newtown was “off the bell curve, if you will, with respect to the impact.”
Perhaps that’s because the Newtown killer had a military-style gun with a 30-round magazine?
Hutchinson, queried by a reporter from Connecticut, said that limiting assault weapons is “totally inadequate” because it “doesn’t stop violence in the schools.” Likewise, he told CBS News’s Nancy Cordes, limiting magazine clips won’t work as well as his plan to “give the schools more tools” — i.e., guns. And he told CNN’s Jim Acosta that background checks weren’t related to his focus of school safety.
Fox News’s Chad Pergram mentioned the gun-control legislation. “Do you see any common ground?” he asked.
“This will be the common ground,” Hutchinson said of his proposals.
If so, American schoolchildren may grow accustomed to the sort of scene Hutchinson caused Tuesday, protected by more armed guards than a Third World dictator.
Hutchinson, pressed by reporters about the armed goons, said: “You go into a mall, there is security. And so there is security here at the National Press Club.”
A reporter asked Hutchinson what he was afraid of.
“There’s nothing I’m afraid of. I’m very wide open,” Hutchinson replied, separated from his unarmed questioners by an eight-foot buffer zone, a lectern, a raised podium, a red-velvet rope and a score of gun-toting men. “There’s nothing I’m nervous about.”
By: Dana Milbank, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, April 2, 2013
“Close The Loopholes”: What Republicans Used To Believe On Guns
Greg Sargent flags a video today that’s almost hard to believe. If anyone needed a reminder about the stunning trajectory of the debate over gun policy, this clip ought to do the trick.
The video is a 30-second ad recorded by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2000, endorsing an Oregon ballot measure intended to expand firearm background checks. For those who can’t watch clips online, here’s the script:
“I’m John McCain with some straight talk. Convicted felons have been able to buy and sell thousands of guns at gun shows because of a loophole in the law. Many were later used in crimes. That’s wrong.
“Here in Oregon, Measure 5 will close this dangerous loophole by requiring criminal background checks by unlicensed dealers at gun shows. I believe law abiding citizens have the right to own guns — but with rights come responsibilities. Close the loophole; vote yes on 5.”
Keep in mind, this was in 2000 — the year McCain sought the Republican presidential nomination, and won seven primaries.
Thirteen years later, Republicans not only can’t bring themselves to agree with this same message, they’re actually prepared to kill any legislation that does what McCain wanted to do.
In other words, in 2000, there was nothing especially shocking about a conservative Republican — someone with an “A” rating from the NRA, who enjoyed a national following — endorsing expanded firearm background checks. In 2013, in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, just about all congressional Republicans consider this idea to be outrageous assault on liberty that must be crushed.
In 2000, McCain said tougher federal restrictions on firearms purchases made sense “in light of some of the terrible tragedies that have befallen our nation.” In 2013, in the aftermath of terrible tragedies, McCain’s party is reluctant to even have a debate on measures that enjoy overwhelming public support.
I can only imagine how appalled McCain circa 2000 would be with McCain circa 2013.
The point, however, isn’t just that John McCain is a shell of his former self; the point is there’s been a striking shift in Republican politics as the party has grown increasingly radicalized in recent years. McCain’s moderation on guns 13 years ago is simply intolerable within today’s GOP.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, April 2, 2013
“Note To U. S. Senate”: Connecticut’s New Gun Laws Should Be A Wake-Up Call And A ‘Model For the Nation’
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) hopes that Connecticut’s sweeping new gun-control proposals will be a “wake-up call” for the U.S. Senate, which is expected to consider new gun legislation when it returns next week.
“I think it should be a wake-up call, and it should serve as a model for the nation and as momentum for Congress,” Blumenthal said in an interview with Business Insider on Wednesday. “I’m proud and thankful that Connecticut is helping to lead the nation and leading by example.”
The Connecticut General Assembly on Wednesday is expected to pass the new set of restrictions put forward by a bipartisan legislative task force.
The new legislation, which comes a little more than three months after the elementary-school massacre in Newtown, Conn., includes some of the following measures:
- A ban on high-capacity magazines of more than 10 rounds;
- A ban on armor-piercing bullets;
- Requiring background checks for all weapon sales, including privately at gun shows;
- An expansion of mental health research in the state;
- An expansion of the state’s current assault weapons ban.
If, as expected, Gov. Dannel Malloy signs the bill into law, the new provisions will be enforced immediately.
But Blumenthal cautioned that the state’s new restrictions won’t mean much if measures aren’t taken on a national scale.
“I think it will heighten awareness, but it also should dramatize that no single state can do this alone. No single state can protect its citizens from illegal trafficking or straw purchases, because our state borders are porous,” Blumenthal said.
The U.S. Senate is expected to begin debate next week on a host of new gun control legislation, including universal background checks and a federal gun trafficking ban. Blumenthal also said he plans to introduce an amendment that would limit magazine capacity to no more than 10 rounds.
By: Brett LoGiurato, Business Insider, April 3, 2013
“Don’t Let Senators Off The Hook”: There Is No Logical Way To Argue Expanding Background Checks Infringes On Constitutional Rights
Every Senator who is refusing to support expanded background checks — Republican or Democrat — needs to be asked a simple question: Do you support the current background system, or do you see it as an infringement on the rights of the law-abiding?
Every one of them will answer with a Yes, because they are taking refuge behind the idea that the current law needs to be strengthened in various ways but not expanded. Once they are on record confirming they don’t view the current system as a threat to Constitutional rights, the arguments against expanding it dissolve into incoherence.
The Senators who are threatening to filibuster Obama’s gun proposals (Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee) have said that they will “oppose any legislation that infringes on the American people’s right to bear arms, or on their ability to exercise this right without being subjected to any additional government surveillance.”
But even libertarian Tea Party chieftain Rand Paul has allowed that current background checks “work.” And on the Sunday shows yesterday, other Republican Senators, such as Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake, said they could support improving the current system through better data sharing by states on the mentally ill and other such moves, while opposing expanding checks to private sales. As Steve Benen notes, this means “leaving the massive gun show loophole in place.”
That’s true, and I’d add one other point: It means these Senators view the current background check law as constitutional. Which means there is no logical way to argue that expanding background checks is an infringement on Constitutional rights. Here’s why: The compromise background check expansion being negotiated would simply build on current law, which requires gun dealers (who would conduct the checks on private sales) to keep records on those sales; it explicitly forbids the creation of a national registry; and it requires the feds to destroy info collected on legit gun transfers within 24 hours. None of this — none of it — would change. If the current law is not an infringement on constitutional rights, then neither is an expanded one.
To be fair, in their Sunday appearances, Graham and Flake didn’t argue against the proposal on Constitutional grounds, as the four Tea Party Senators have. But they both dissembled about the plan, with Graham falsely suggesting a father-son gun transfer could be targeted (the compromise proposal under discussion exempts family members), and Flake lamenting new “paperwork requirements” (which would be identical to current ones).
All these Senators should be pressed on whether they support the law requiring private citizens who purchase guns from federally licensed dealers to undergo a check. When they confirm that they do, they need to be pressed on why applying that same system to private sales — in which private citizens who buy guns from another private citizen must undergo a check — is objectionable, particularly since for the buyers, nothing changes, and since these Senators themselves concede we need to do a better job preventing criminals and the mentally from buying guns.
Senators holding out against expanded checks need to be pushed hard on this stuff. This is an important proposal, with American lives potentially at stake.
By: Greg Sargent, The Washington Post, The Plum Line, April 1, 2013
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