Washington
In largely party-line votes, two proposals were rejected, one from each side. One proposed keeping extremists from acquiring guns and another hoped to shore up the government’s existing system of required background checks for many firearms purchases.
With the chamber’s visitors’ galleries unusually crowded for a Monday evening — including people wearing orange T-shirts saying #ENOUGH gun violence — each measure fell short of the 60 votes needed to progress. Democrats called the GOP proposals unacceptably weak while Republicans said the Democratic plans were overly restrictive.
The stalemate underscored the pressure on each party to give little ground on the emotional gun issue going into November’s presidential and congressional elections. It also highlighted the potency of the National Rifle Association, which urged its huge and fiercely loyal membership to lobby senators to oppose the Democratic bills.
“Republicans say, ‘Hey look, we tried,’ ” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “And all the time, their cheerleaders, the bosses at the NRA, are cheering them.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the Orlando, Fla., shootings — in which the FBI says the American-born gunman swore allegiance to a leader of the Islamic State group — show the best way to prevent attacks by extremists is to defeat such groups overseas.
“Look, no one wants terrorists to be able to buy guns or explosives,” McConnell said. He suggested that Democrats were using the day’s votes “as an opportunity to push a partisan agenda or craft the next 30-second campaign ad,” while Republicans wanted “real solutions.”
That Monday’s four roll-call votes occurred at all was testament to the political currents buffeting lawmakers after gunman Omar Mateen’s June 12 attack on a gay nightclub. The 49 victims who died made it the largest mass shooting in recent U.S. history, topping the string of such incidents that have punctuated recent years.
The FBI said Mateen — a focus of two terror investigations that were dropped — described himself as an Islamic soldier in a 911 call during the shootings. That let gun control advocates add national security and the specter of terrorism to their arguments for firearms curbs, while relatives of victims of past mass shootings and others visiting lawmakers and watching debate from the visitors’ galleries.
GOP senators facing re-election this fall from swing states were under extraordinary pressure.
One, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., voted Monday for the Democratic measure to block gun sales to terrorists, a switch from when she joined most Republicans in killing a similar plan last December. She said that vote — plus her support for a rival GOP measure — would help move lawmakers toward approving a narrower bipartisan plan, like one being crafted by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
“We must come together to enact real solutions that will prevent further acts of senseless violence,” Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in a news release after the vote.
Monday’s votes came after Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., led a near 15-hour filibuster last week demanding a Senate response to the Orlando killings. Murphy entered the Senate shortly after the December 2012 massacre of 20 first-graders and six educators in Newtown, Conn., but that slaughter and others have failed to spur Congress to tighten gun laws. The last were enacted in 2007, when the background check system was strengthened after that year’s mass shooting at Virginia Tech.
Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., issued a statement prior to voting in favor of the amendments: “Frankly, these Democratic amendments are no-brainers. It is incomprehensible to me, and I believe to the vast majority of Americans, as to why Republicans would oppose them.
“Sen. (Dianne) Feinstein’s and Sen. Murphy’s proposals are commonsense. In light of the terrible tragedies that have taken place in Orlando and other cities, it’s not very hard to understand that terrorists or potential terrorists, criminals and the dangerously mentally ill should not have access to guns. We have got to do everything we can to stop guns from falling into the hands of people who should not have them.”
With Mateen’s self-professed loyalty to extremist groups and his 10-month inclusion on a federal terrorism watch list, Feinstein, D-Calif., proposed letting the government block many gun sales to known or suspected terrorists. People buying firearms from federally licensed gun dealers can currently be denied for several reasons, chiefly for serious crimes or mental problems, but there is no specific prohibition for those on the terrorist watch list.
That list currently contains around 1 million people — including fewer than 5,000 Americans or legal permanent residents, according to the latest government figures.
No background checks are required for anyone buying guns privately online or at gun shows.
The GOP response to Feinstein was an NRA-backed plan by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. It would let the government deny a sale to a known or suspected terrorist — but only if prosecutors could convince a judge within three days that the would-be buyer was involved in terrorism.