Senate Republicans Shun Trump’s Gun Control Ideas – By Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Thomas Kaplan (nytimes.com) / March 1 2018
WASHINGTON — A day after President Trump ordered lawmakers to draft tough gun control legislation, few if any Republicans embraced the president’s surprising stances and congressional leaders on Thursday showed little urgency in moving forward with even modest gun measures.
In his televised meeting with members of Congress on Wednesday, Mr. Trump called for comprehensive gun control legislation that would, among other things, expand background checks to firearms purchased at gun shows and on the internet — a measure favored by Democrats but anathema to the National Rifle Association.
On Capitol Hill on Thursday, the distancing began. A number of Republicans who voted against the expanded background checks legislation in 2013 said Mr. Trump had said nothing that changed their minds. And several Republican newcomers, who were not present for the emotional debate prompted by the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., said they could not support such a bill.
“So far there’s been a lot of chopping, but I don’t see any chips flying and I don’t think that’s going to change,” said Senator John Kennedy, a freshman Republican from Louisiana known for his colorful analogies.
Others were more to the point. “He has not changed my mind,” said Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia. Like Mr. Kennedy, she was not in the Senate when the background checks bill came up. “Had I been here, I would have voted no,” she said.
In a sign that there will be no rush to advance gun legislation, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, told reporters that he had no intention of bringing a gun measure to the Senate floor next week. And Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican, dismissed Wednesday’s White House meeting as a “brainstorming session” that would not dictate policy.
Mr. Cornyn is the chief sponsor of the so-called Fix NICS Act, which would incentivize states and federal agencies to improve their reporting to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, for gun purchases.
The measure, which people on both sides of the gun debate agree is modest, has 49 co-sponsors in the Senate. Mr. Cornyn has said he would like his legislation to serve as a “base bill” that could be a starting point for a debate in which other senators could offer amendments.
But even the Fix NICS Act is facing a hurdle: Mr. McConnell cannot sidestep Senate rules to bring it to the floor quickly for a vote because unanimous consent is required to do so, and at least one senator, Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, has objected.
And at least one Democratic senator, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, said Democrats might seek to block a stand-alone Fix NICS bill, because it does not go far enough.
Congress passed similar legislation in 2007, after the massacre at Virginia Tech. But lapses persist. For example, the Air Force failed to report a domestic violence court-martial to the F.B.I. that could have prevented a Texas gunman from purchasing a weapon before killing 26 people in a Texas church last November. Mr. Cornyn began the push for his legislation after that massacre.
“I think that we’ve come to the conclusion that Fix NICS alone would be a mockery of the magnitude of the problem and also the seismic shift in public opinion around this issue,” Mr. Blumenthal said.
Gun control has long been one of the most divisive and emotional issues in Washington. The last time it had a thorough airing was in 2013, after a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook in December 2012. Now the issue is front and center again after the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla.
In addition to embracing expanded background checks, Mr. Trump on Wednesday called for measures to keep guns from mentally ill people, secure schools and restrict gun sales for some young adults. At one point, he even suggested a conversation on an assault weapons ban.
“It was wild,” said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate. “I think the president’s going to have to narrow his list of issues that he would like to see addressed and figure out what’s realistic.”
With the House out of session Wednesday and Thursday, it was left to senators to parse the meaning of the president’s remarks. Picking up on Mr. Trump’s stated desire for broad gun legislation, Senate Democrats on Thursday rolled out their own set of proposals: expanding background checks, banning assault weapons and allowing protective orders to temporarily take away guns from people who have shown signs of being dangerous.
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, who outlined the plan, gave Mr. Trump credit for his comments at Wednesday’s meeting but also urged the president to stick to them. Mr. Schumer has ample experience with the president’s shifting demands; in January, Mr. Schumer said that negotiating with him was like “negotiating with Jell-O.”
“Words alone will not prevent the next mass shooting,” Mr. Schumer said on Thursday. “One public meeting will not close background check loopholes. One hour of television won’t get assault weapons off our streets.”
Yet Democrats made clear they were counting on Mr. Trump to play a pivotal role in building support for significant gun legislation, given the challenge of winning Republican support in the face of intense pressure from the N.R.A.
One modest area where the president could help is severing the Fix NICS bill from a separate measure, pushed by the N.R.A., to force states that do not have concealed weapons laws to recognize the concealed weapons permits of states that do. The House passed both measures as one bill in December, and some Republicans in the House have balked at the idea of severing the two.
But Mr. Trump forcefully told Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the Republican whip, that the concealed weapons permit bill would never pass the Senate and should not hold the other measure hostage.
Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia and a chief sponsor of the expanded background checks bill that failed in 2013, said Mr. Trump would be “the most important person at the table.”
“This is about the president,” Mr. Manchin said. “He’s the only person that can make this happen.”
