The House is in full swing Wednesday, with gun safety bill votes that will put some pressure on Senate Republicans. They are not taking multiple votes on each provision in the package of eight bills, as many members wanted, but instead will go for swift passage and pressure on the Senate.
Where Republicans are continuing to succeed in dragging Democrats along in their slow walk to ultimately doing nothing. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer backed down from pressing a vote in the immediate aftermath of the Uvalde massacre, instead promising that as soon as the Senate came back from Memorial Day recess this week, they’d have their votes. This week? Spoiler alert: he’s not pressing that vote. On the floor Wednesday, Schumer left the schedule open-ended. “I hope my colleagues continue to make progress towards an effective agreement, hopefully by the end of the week,” he said.
Meanwhile, the American people want action. The brand new Daily Kos/Civiqs survey shows a very real thirst among voters for concrete action. The survey found that 83% of Americans consider gun violence to be a national problem (67% a big problem, 16% a small problem). But what was striking was the bipartisan 86% support for universal background checks of would-be gun purchasers—that included a majority of Republicans at 75%. There is majority support—52% (45% strongly support, 7% somewhat support)—for a ban on assault-style weapons.
That backs up polling conducted immediately after Uvalde by Morning Consult for Politico. It found 88% approval for background checks on all gun sales; 75% support for a national database tracking gun sales; a 67% approval for banning assault-style guns; 84% approval for red flag laws; and 77% approval for requiring gun owners to put their guns in safe storage units.
We talk to gun control advocate and executive director of Guns Down America, Igor Volsky on Daily Kos' The Brief podcast
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats seem to think that Republicans are actually conducting negotiations on guns in good faith, while Republicans have repeatedly said they’re not talking about guns, but about mental illness and school security. There’s one set of talks between two senators—Democrat Dick Blumenthal and Republican Lindsey Graham—on red flag laws, but no progress there has been reported.
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What they’re talking about with red flags is actually not so much a law as providing incentives in the form of federal grants to states that pass their own laws. Federal grant funding that Republicans will likely try to steal from other spending priorities, mostly like COVID-19 money to states.
“This issue is too important not to do everything we can to find a bipartisan way forward,” Schumer told reporters Tuesday. “We’re giving [Republicans] the opportunity, the chance, to say yes—we’re ready and eager to find common ground on something that can actually help address gun violence.”
That way forward is definitely not going to include more restrictive gun laws, according to Sen. John Cornyn, the Republican Mitch McConnell put in charge of making sure the Senate takes as long as possible to make nothing meaningful happen.
“I want to be clear, though: We are not talking about restricting the rights of current law-abiding gun owners or citizens,” Cornyn said Monday in a floor speech. “What I’m interested in is keeping guns out of the hands of those who, by current law, are not supposed to have them: people with mental health problems, people who have criminal records.”
“I’m a proud supporter of the Second Amendment,” Cornyn said. His counterpart, Sen. Chris Murphy (CT) who is the lead for Democrats, meantime, says this time is different. “Parents are scared to death we’re going to do nothing. Ultimately, the vast majority of Americans are demanding we step up and do something,” he said.
Ultimately, the Senate will do next to nothing that would keep schoolchildren—or churchgoers, or grocery store shoppers, or nightclub revelers, or people with disgruntled coworkers, or people living with domestic violence—safe. American voters know that, too. That Morning Consult/Politico poll found that just 37% think that Congress might act on gun restrictions in the next year, and 88% say there will be at least as many or more incidents of gun violence in the next year.
Which is as depressing as hell, and a fact that the nihilistic Republicans will exploit by making sure nothing happens. It doesn’t actually hurt them in their individual races in their very rural, Republican states.
That makes Democrats increasing their majority in the Senate this November absolutely existential.
