Campaign Action
Between 2001 and 2013 (the last year the CDC has records for), 406,496 people died from being shot, whether by homicide, suicide, or accident. With that in mind, the Senate is going to vote on Monday afternoon on competing gun measures, two from Democrats and two from Republicans, none of which is particularly far-reaching. But if you want a preview of how the votes will likely go, look no further than this tweet from the NRA that they've been sending out repeatedly for the past week: "Contact your lawmakers! Tell them to oppose any new #guncontrol measures!"
That said, the NRA did pre-approve two of the amendments being offered today, largely because they don't do anything. Sen. Chuck Grassley has one kinda, sorta related to background checks, increasing funding to the National Instant Background Check System and providing incentives for sharing mental health records. Not that these are bad things, but boy, talk about not really addressing the issue. Sen. John Cornyn's amendment addresses the so-call "terror gap" by imposing a 72-hour waiting period for people on the terrorist watch list to buy a gun. In that 72 hours, law enforcement is supposed to be notified of the pending sale, investigate, go to a judge and jump through a series of hoops to stop a sale. In 72 hours. The NRA is allowing Grassley and Cornyn to offer these amendments, but is still urging their members to call senators to vote against them.
The companion Democratic amendments come from Sen. Chris Murphy and Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Murphy's amendment, like Grassley's, would bolster the records used in background checks. It does a lot more than that though, by requiring background checks for all firearm sales—including gunshows and online. Feinstein's "terror gap" legislation allows the attorney general to stop a sale if there's a "reasonable suspicion" of terrorist activity by the buyer. Which Republicans object to, saying "while no one wants a terrorist to have a gun," but cooking up lots of excuses to continue to allow it.
Meanwhile, Maine’s Republican Sen. Susan Collins is cooking up her "moderate compromise," which is basically a handy alternative for vulnerable Senate Republicans (and lone Democrat Heidi Heitkamp) to flock to—they can vote "no" on the Democrats' measures and point to this "bipartisan" effort as what they're holding out for.
None of these amendments is likely to pass—between the NRA and Collins' intervention, it's almost guaranteed they'll all fail to get the necessary 60 votes to live on. At this time. There's plenty of upcoming spending bills for Democrats to bring them up again. But what Democrats should be doing at the same time is escalating the demand. They need to follow President Obama's lead and push for a renewal of the assault-weapons ban. Yes, it's doomed in Congress, but it's the right thing to do, and the American public agrees.