WASHINGTON – After the deadliest school shooting in a decade, a small group of Republican and Democrat senators have launched an urgent, upward effort to reach a compromise on new gun laws, expressing hope that a wave of outrage By the killing of 19 children and two teachers could finally conquer a decade of paralysis of Congress.
Members of the bipartisan group left a private meeting on Thursday determined to work quickly to try to reach an agreement on modest measures to limit access to weapons. They agreed to spend the Memorial Day break examining a number of proposals, including ways to encourage states to pass so-called red-flag laws aimed at removing firearms from potentially dangerous people and expanding criminal background checks for shoppers. of weapons.
“We are at a point in this debate and in the trajectory of armed violence where we need something,” said Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat who is leading the talks. “We have to show progress. People are scared. And so I’m probably much more willing to accept something smaller and more important, but incremental, than a few months after Sandy Hook.
The 10-year-old massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, drew serious parallels with the carnage that took place this week at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. The Sandy Hook shooting sparked an almost identical set of calls for action and bipartisan resolutions on Capitol Hill, and Congress eventually brought Congress to the brink of enacting bipartisan background check legislation in 2013. But the measure failed in the Senate, with a majority of Republicans. and a few opposition Democrats.
“Times are changing,” Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, a Republican from Pennsylvania and a sponsor of the bill, said Thursday. “And there is a chance it will work this time.”
Leaders of both parties indicated provisional support for the effort, although strong notes of skepticism sounded after years of failed attempts by Congress to address armed violence, each following the same cycle. of outrage and optimism for an agreement giving way to partisan division. and finally defeat.
Democrats said they would allow the talks to take place for a long time before insisting that Republicans, who have opposed or blocked successive efforts to enact arms control measures, vote on the issue.
“We have no hope that this will be easy: we have been burned in the past when Republicans promised to debate only because they broke their promise,” said New York Sen. Chuck Schumer of the majority. “But even in all likelihood, the issue is so important, so raw for the American people, so personal for countless families with missing children, that we must seize this opportunity.”
“Make no mistake,” he added, “if these negotiations do not bear fruit in a short period of time, the Senate will vote on arms security legislation.”
In a statement that Republicans believe the talks could lead to an agreement, minority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said he had asked Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a close ally, to speak with Sr. Murphy and other Democrats working on a deal.
“I hope we can find a bipartisan solution that is directly related to the facts of this horrific massacre,” McConnell told CNN. He added: “I will keep in touch with them and hopefully we can get a result that can really be passed and become law, instead of just scoring back and forth points.”
The participation of Mr. Cornyn indicated that Mr. McConnell intends to keep a close eye on the talks, giving him the means to intervene if he deems it necessary to try to suppress an agreement he considers politically dangerous or to direct talks toward something that Republicans can accept. .
In a strong reminder of the wide gap between the two sides on how to tackle mass shootings in the United States, Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked legislation tabled by Democrats to bolster the federal government’s efforts to fight domestic terrorism.
Democrats pushed for the measure in the House last week following a racist massacre in Buffalo in which a gunman motivated by white supremacist ideology killed 10 blacks in a supermarket.
The bill, known as the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, would establish three new offices, one at the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security, to oversee, investigate, and prosecute domestic terrorism. It would require biannual reports assessing the threat of domestic terrorism posed by white supremacists, with a particular focus on combating the “infiltration of white supremacists and neo-Nazis by uniformed services.”
It first ran in 2017, but Democratic leaders moved quickly to resurface after the Buffalo shootout. In that shooting, the gunman appeared to have been inspired by the theory of the “great substitute” for white supremacy, which holds that Western elites are planning to dispossess whites by replacing them with people of color.
Following the shooting at Uvalde School this week, Democratic leaders framed the Domestic Terrorism Bill as the best vehicle for swift action on measures to prevent armed violence. Mr. Schumer pledged to allow debate on the proposed changes to the bill on both sides to address armed violence if Republicans allow it to move forward.
But in a party line vote, Senate Republicans even refused to consider the measure, arguing that the bill was unnecessary and defined extremism in a way that could be interpreted too broadly by law enforcement forces. the order. The vote was 47 to 47, leaving Democrats short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill.
Its failure meant that the Senate marched for the Memorial Day break without any legislative action to address the two mass shootings.
Democrats, on the other hand, have backed their hopes for gun safety legislation in the bipartisan talks led by Mr. Murphy. Several senators said their preference was to see if there was an agreement before making another default vote on legislation that is doomed to fail in an equally divided Senate.
“We’ve all made it clear where we are in individual legislation many times in this place,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat. “What we haven’t done is pass laws very often, so I’m just trying to be open-minded.”
Mr. Murphy, who had asked Mr. Schumer, long to continue negotiations, on Thursday welcomed a group of senators to his office in the basement of the Capitol, including several veterans of failed negotiations on gun legislation.
In an interview later in the day, Mr. Murphy acknowledged that he was embarking on a difficult task: trying to find a solution to the armed violence that 10 Republicans could support, enough to break a dead end.
“We’re trying to put enough Republicans in the room, maybe not because we have 60 guaranteed votes, but because we have a much better chance,” he said. “And we’re realistic, too.”
Republicans at the meeting included Mr. Toomey and Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina; Another Republican, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, called. Other Democrats in attendance included Mr. Heinrich and Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Participants insisted that the destroyed images of Uvalde had created a new sense of urgency.
“That feels different,” Mr. Manchin, almost a decade after partnering with Mr. Toomey in the background check legislation that could not erase a Senate obstructionism. He added: “I’ve never been in this mood. I can’t get my grandchildren out of my mind.”
The list of options senators are considering is narrower and more incremental than the arms security measures Democrats and activists have called for in the past, such as a ban on assault weapons and magazines. high capacity.
Mr Graham, for example, said he was focusing on creating a grant program to encourage states to enact red-flag laws, which are intended to restrict potentially dangerous people from carrying weapons. A federal red flag law, he said, would be a non-initiator.
Florida Sen. Rick Scott, a hardline Republican, has also been committed to Democrats on red-flag laws in recent days, Murphy said.
Senators have also been discussing measures to expand background checks and provide additional support for school safety, an issue Republicans have focused on long after the Uvalde shooting.
Talks were expected to continue during the recess, with senators splitting into groups to discuss specific issues.
“We’re starting to try to figure out if there’s a way to reach a consensus,” Toomey said, “and we’ll see where it takes us.”