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Senate rushes to get gun deal in place

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As of the time this post is published, we still don’t have any legislative text to look at, but Sen. John Cornyn of Texas told reporters on Tuesday morning that he expects the framework agreed to a couple of weeks ago to result in a bill hitting the Senate floor later today.

The Texas Republican said negotiators, including his fellow Republican Senator Thom Tillis and Democratic Senators Chris Murphy and Kyrsten Sinema, spoke early in the day by phone and were now waiting for staff to produce legislative text.

“I think we’re on a glide path, and hopefully it will land shortly,” Cornyn said in an interview shortly after speaking with his fellow negotiators. He added that he expected the bill to be introduced on the Senate floor later in the day but gave no specific time.

Introducing the bill on Tuesday would improve the odds of Senate passage before lawmakers leave for their two-week July 4 break at the end of this week.

Yeah, about that. I know that there’s a huge amount of pressure coming from Democrats to hold a vote before senators skedaddle home for the holiday, but it’s even more important to go over every line of that legislation with a fine-toothed comb to ferret out any hidden features that might be buried in page after page of mind-numbing legalese. The only reason to rush a vote is to meet a self-imposed artificial (and political) deadline, and if senators don’t have time to read the fine print before they’re told they have to say “aye” or “nay” that’s a huge problem.

It’s not that I don’t trust anti-gun Democrats to quietly insert some additional gun control initiatives into the legislation, it’s that… well, no, actually I guess it is that I don’t trust Democrats in these negotiations. I know that they’re desperate to pass anything they can conceivably call a victory and the “most substantial piece of gun safety reform in 30 years”, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try to sneak a few extra restrictions if they think they can get away with it, and a swift vote would make it easier for them to do so.

Of course, it’s also possible that no text emerges today after all. There were reports from Fox News on Monday that a bill would be released yesterday afternoon, though none appeared, and it looks like there are still some issues yet to be addressed, including… abortion funding?

Negotiators working to turn the agreed-upon legislative framework into draft text are now focusing on the Hyde Amendment, which forbids federal funding from being used to pay for abortions. That provision has gotten caught up in the portion of the possible gun law dealing with mental health funding, with Republicans pushing for language barring any money in an ultimate agreement from being used pay for abortions, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The snag marks the latest curveball in discussions that sources have said would have to result in legislative text by the end of Tuesday in order to pass a bill before the two-week break for July 4.

llinois Democrat Dick Durbin, the Senate majority whip, suggested to ABC News on Tuesday that conversations over the Hyde Amendment could be resolved quickly and aides were still optimistic that an overall deal would not be derailed.

One way or the other, I guess we’ll know soon enough whether a vote will take place this week and what will specifically be voted on. Stay tuned, and  stay in contact with your congresscritters to let them know where you stand.

Rep. Byron Donalds has a powerful and personal take on why fear can't dictate gun policy

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I’m planning to have the congressman on Cam & Co next week to talk about this, but I don’t want to wait until then to write about the Florida congressman’s response to calls for more gun control after the massacres in Uvalde and Buffalo in recent weeks.

Writing at Fox News, Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida has laid out what I think is one of the best arguments against a knee-jerk, gun-centric reaction, starting with his own experience “living in fear of guns.”

Growing up in inner-city Brooklyn, New York, during the ’80s, I’ve seen my fair share of guns and their positive and negative impacts on a community. From the rampant crime that scourged New York City during my childhood and killed countless Americans, many of whom looked like me, to the brave law enforcement officers who protected our streets with firearms.

I grew up very familiar with weapons, whether I was ready or not. The emotional toll of living in an unsafe neighborhood can weigh on your psyche, especially as a parent. My mother, a hardworking single parent, often feared her child could end up dead at the hands of an evil man with a gun, a reality far too many mothers in underserved neighborhoods have faced.

As someone who lived in the inner city, I can say firsthand that my peers and I lived in fear, a fear that we’d eventually grow numb to but a real fear, nonetheless. The fear of getting killed by a stray bullet, witnessing a murder, or getting mugged at gunpoint while walking home from a basketball practice. I mention the latter example because it’s personal to me. Growing up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, I was walking home after basketball practice when I stared death in the eye at the hands of a deranged person looking to steal my belongings. Although I was reluctant to hand over my valuables to a criminal, I knew my life was far more important than ending up dead over things that honestly didn’t matter.

Donalds’ story especially resonates with me because of the experience of my wife and two oldest kids, who lived in Camden, New Jersey when it was the murder capital of the United States back in the early and mid 1990s. When I met my wife online in 1996 and things got serious a few months later, it was an easy call for her to make that she and the kids were moving to Oklahoma with me rather than me move to Camden with them, and I understood. As a 22-year old just starting out in television news, I didn’t make enough money to live in a great neighborhood either, but I didn’t have stories about my neighbor’s ex-boyfriend showing up outside her door and drunkenly firing away while I pressed myself as close as I could to the linoleum floor of my apartment. I never fell asleep to the sound of gunfire because it was as common as the sound of crickets in the countryside.

I grew up in the bucolic suburbs of Oklahoma City, far away from the type of violence and fear that Donalds describes. But I’m a husband and father to people who could swap years worth of stories with Donalds, and those stories have sunk in with me. I’m not blind to the realities of gun-related violence, whether it’s a suicide or an intentional act targeting others. It’s not that I and gun owners like me don’t care about the victims of these crimes. It’s that we don’t believe infringing on our right to keep and bear arms is A) constitutional and B) an effective or “reasonable” answer.

As we continue to mourn the devastating, heart-wrenching, and senseless loss of life in Uvalde, Texas, and struggle with the pain of Parkland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Columbine, Las Vegas, and many more American cities, I am keenly aware of the desire to “do something now.” My job as an elected official is to determine what that something should and shouldn’t be and make the difficult decision to decipher what is best for my constituents and the future of our nation. Today, all eyes are on our Congress to determine that “something,” — and we must make sure raw emotion doesn’t cloud our judgment, but rather that steady, constitutional solutions take priority.

Whether some in America like it or not, we are a nation grounded in our Constitution, and while some see this sacred document as inconvenient, we must not deviate from this fact. Look, Republicans have kids, too — I have three sons, and their lives and well-being mean more to me than anything. As someone responsible for determining federal policy in our nation’s capital, elected officials on both sides of the aisle must engage in honest and good faith conversations when tackling the American people’s tremendous burdens.

I’ll do everything I can to ensure this nation stays true to our founding principles despite the overwhelming headwinds of bully pulpits and political positioning. My commitment is always to keep my door open, hear all sides, and follow the rule of law, irrespective of the emotionally charged matter up for debate.

Our emotions may dictate what we respond to, but it shouldn’t be the determining factor in how we respond. That’s where those “steady, constitutional solutions” that Donalds writes about should hold sway. Still, emotions do matter, and Donalds’ openness about his own experience with being afraid of firearms and growing up in a place with a lot of violent crime is a pretty powerful way of approaching the subject that’s likely to resonate at an emotionally-charged moment than the recitation of dry statistics.

Can the Senate gun deal be stopped?

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With 10 Republicans agreeing in principle to a deal that includes increased spending on mental health and school security as well as offering grants to states that adopt “red flag” laws and including juvenile crime records in background checks on young adults who purchase firearms, there’s a lot of momentum at the moment, and if 2A activists are going to successfully sideline the legislation they can’t just talk to themselves.

I’ll say right up front that I’m not bullish on the prospects of defeating the bill or even substantially amending it to make it more palatable to Second Amendment supporters. The framework released on Sunday already involves “compromise” language; including juvenile records in background checks performed on adults under-21 who purchase firearms, for instance, instead of raising the age to purchase rifles and shotguns from 18 to 21. The incentives to states that adopt “red flag” measures are also a step removed from the federal “red flag” legislation approved by the House last week, and won’t necessarily lead to widespread adoption of the law, particularly given that most of the 19 states that have signed off on similar legislation are the low-hanging fruit for the gun control advocates hoping to enact them.

Still, with groups like the NRA and NSSF taking a “wait-and-see” approach to the actual text of the legislation, there’s still at least a sliver of doubt about the ultimate outcome of the framework agreed to by 10 members of the Senate’s Republican caucus, and once that text is released and available for review I suspect that some of the folks who are reserving their opinion will end up speaking out against the measure.

What they say and who their intended audience is could also have an impact. Like it or not, gun owners are not a numerical majority in this country, and even if we were, not every gun owner is a Second Amendment activist. If we’re only talking to ourselves or screaming at gun control activists, then we’re not helping our cause, especially in an emotionally-charged political environment like the one we’re in now.

There is one overriding issue that’s driving the Senate’s legislative response to the shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo, and it’s not public safety. It’s the midterms. The shootings do appear to have made even some Republicans more supportive of new gun laws, at least in theory (and likely temporarily), and that has probably helped move the needle in terms of senators willing to “do something” on guns as part of their legislative solution. Even in the Constitutional Carry state of Oklahoma, gun control has now become one of the top issues for voters, though it still trails jobs and the economy.

The support among independents is a key factor as well when it comes to defeating any new gun control measures. That poll of Oklahoma voters, for example, found that gun control is a top issue for just 8% of Republicans (the same percentage as abortion, for what it’s worth), but that number jumps to 28% of independents. That’s actually three points higher than the 25% of Democrats in the state who named gun control as their top election year priority.

As the New York Times, of all places, recently pointed out, support for gun control legislation in public opinion polls doesn’t necessarily translate into support for specific policies when voters have a chance to cast their own ballots on the measure, but I think it’s fair to say that right now there are a whole lotta people who want to “do something” to prevent these types of shootings, and adding new restrictions on legal gun owners may indeed sound “reasonable” to non-gun owners or even gun owners who don’t care to delve too deeply into how these laws work in practice.

Both parties are trying to attract those independents to their side this November, and while Democrats have a harder job given Bidenflation, supply chain issues, and the growing likelihood of a recession in the coming months Republicans can’t just assume that undecideds and independents are going to break heavily in their direction on Election Day.

Most Second Amendment activists can cite statistics and anecdotal evidence showing that things like “red flag” laws, universal background checks, or gun bans aimed at legal gun owners don’t have a big impact on violent criminals, but those logical and rational responses likely leave a lot of those independent voters cold, because they don’t really speak to the emotional rhetoric driving the gun control side of the debate. If the question on the mind of those voters is “what are you going to do to stop another Uvalde from happening”, a response that’s centered on “well, we’re not going to subvert the Second Amendment” isn’t likely to resonate with many of them. A lot of these voters aren’t exactly demanding gun control, but they’re demanding lawmakers “do something,” and unless we’re a) willing to acknowledge the horrific nature of these attacks and b) present a non-gun control solution that is credible, effective, and constitutional, a lot of these folks in the middle are going to decide that a few “reasonable restrictions” that won’t impact them in the slightest is the most viable solution.

But that’s only one problem in terms of stopping the Senate’s gun deal, and arguably not the biggest issue. It’s no coincidence that none of the Republicans who’ve signed to the framework are running for election this year; four are retiring, and the other six won’t face their constituents for at least two years. As long as those ten are willing to stick by the supposedly modest restrictions they’ve already agreed to in principle, then the deal is likely to stick. Perhaps the best chance of seeing the deal scuttled is if Democrats overreach on specific legislative language, but even then I worry that the political impulse to “do something” is going to be the overriding concern of the ten Republican senators who’ve given their thumbs up to the deal. That being said, an agreement in theory isn’t a guarantee of passage, and there are plenty of specifics that will need to be addressed; each one another potential breaking point for the tentative deal.

How narrowly will a new definition of which sellers need federal firearms licenses be written? Are there limits on which juvenile records would be accessible during background checks for younger buyers?

What conditions would states have to meet to qualify for “red flag” funds? What legal protections would people have if the authorities consider them too risky to have firearms?

How much money will the package cost? No one has said, though people familiar with the discussions say a ballpark $15 billion is possible. And how will it be paid for?

A leader of the effort, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told reporters Monday that bargainers plan to pay for the costs with offsetting spending cuts or new revenues. The latter could be a no-go for Republicans.

It sounds like even the senators who negotiated the framework are unclear of the details at the moment, even though they’re hoping to have a vote before the Senate recesses for Independence Day. There’s still a little time for the deal to fall apart, either of its own weight or because of voter backlash, but Second Amendment activists and other opponents definitely have their work cut out for them.

House passes performative anti-gun bills despite little chance of Senate approval

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And by “little,” I mean “no chance”… with one exception. Maybe the group of Republican and Democratic senators huddling together to find some sort of “compromise” on gun control legislation ends up including a ban on the sale of modern sporting rifles for adults under the age of 21 (Mitch McConnell, for instance, says he’s open to the idea, though he’s not encouraging Republicans to back it), but bans on commonly-owned “large capacity” magazines, storage mandates, and other provisions of the House Democrats’ anti-gun package aren’t even a part of the Senate negotiations, and based on this evening’s House vote, I’d say any attempt to raise the age limit on gun purchases is going to struggle to find support among ten GOP senators.

Still, that didn’t stop Nancy Pelosi from holding the performative vote on multiple gun control measures Wednesday evening, and she plans on following today’s vote with another tomorrow on a bill that would both incentivize states to adopt “red flag” firearm seizure laws and establish a federal “red flag” law as well. The incentives for state-level red flag laws are also a part of the Senate discussions, but the idea of a federal red flag law appears to have been shelved pretty early on in the talks.

Before Wednesday’s vote, House Democrats held an hours-long hearing featuring the testimony of some of the victims, survivors, and family members of the recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas, many of whom demanded changes to federal gun laws and blamed Republican lawmakers, gun makers, and Second Amendment advocates for putting gun rights ahead of children’s lives; a claim that was roundly rejected by conservative lawmakers taking part in the committee hearing.

Republicans in the room offered sympathies to the victims but no indication that they intended to change their views on gun rights. Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Ga.), a gun-store owner, said the tragedies “highlight the need for additional school security” and condemned Democrats for seeking to restrict firearms.

“While every loss of life is a tragedy, no one should weaponize or politicize these abhorrent acts to punish law-abiding citizens,” he said.

Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), a leading gun rights supporter among House Republicans, promoted legislation Wednesday that would put billions of federal dollars into school security programs but not touch gun laws. GOP leaders planned to force a vote on Hudson’s bill Wednesday as an alternative to the Democratic gun bill.

Hudson accused Democrats of “exploiting these tragedies to advance their radical gun-control agenda” and criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other leaders for inviting victims to testify and call for measures that cannot pass Congress.

“The bills on the floor this week would have done nothing to stop any of these tragedies, and they will never become law,” he said. “They’re exploiting the pain of these people, these children, these parents to advance their radical interests, and I say shame on them.”

After several hours of speeches on the floor of the House (it’s hard to call most of what I heard an actual “debate”), the votes on H.R. 7910 began, with each component receiving a separate vote. The first measure, raising the age to purchase semi-automatic rifles, was approved along a mostly party-line vote of 228-199. The second vote, on establishing a federal trafficking statute and expanding the federal laws prohibiting straw purchases, was approved by a similar 226-197 vote.

On and on it went, with roughly the same margins on all of the votes cast. Thirteen Republicans crossed over and voted in favor of a ban on bump stocks, which was the measure that received the most bipartisan support, but the vote on banning and “buying back” magazines that can hold more than 10-rounds of ammunition received just four votes from GOP members and saw an equal number of Democrats in opposition.

While the House package may have won approval, it’s going to be ignored by the other chamber, at least until we see if the Senate can reach any sort of agreement on its own. If not, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already indicated he’ll proceed with votes on the full Democratic wish list of gun control legislation.

Well, most of the wish list, anyway. Even Nancy Pelosi doesn’t appear ready to hold a vote on Joe Biden’s proposed ban and “buyback” of the more than 20 million modern sporting rifles that are currently in the hands of legal gun owners. That wasn’t included in the omnibus gun control bill approved by the House Wednesday evening, and it’s not scheduled for as much as a committee hearing in the House at the moment. H.R. 7910, however, could very well be brought to the floor of the Senate, even though it’s an open question as to whether it would get the support of the entire Democratic caucus. Senator Joe Manchin has signaled that he’s once again open to a ban on AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles, and has given his thumbs up to raising the age to purchase a modern sporting rifle to 21, but given that those are only two parts of the eight-part gun control legislation, if Manchin wants to find something to object to in order to withhold his vote he can.

On the issue of an under-21 gun ban, Rep. Greg Steube, a Florida Republican, pointed out during his floor speech that, according to the Department of Justice, just .3 percent of 18-20-year olds commit a violent crime in any given year, and .013 percent of adults under 21 are charged with a homicide. Those figures include crimes committed with and without a firearm, by the way. As Steube correctly wondered, why would anybody think that restricting the rights of 99.7% of young adults is going to stop the other .3% from committing a crime, or that it would be the most effective or constitutionally sound way to do so?

Like the rest of the gun control debate taking place on Capitol Hill, it’s not about what could be effective, but what might be politically possible. Sadly, after watching the House debate on Wednesday, I’m convinced that the actual effectiveness of any of these proposals is a secondary consideration at best for most of the proponents of these House measures. Instead, most of the speeches that I heard sounded like soundbites for upcoming campaign ads, which is also one of the main reasons why Democrats opted to hold separate votes on each new restriction on legal gun owners that they want to put in place.

House Democrats struggled to get ten of their Republican colleagues to go along with their adventures in anti-gun extremism, which makes these measures a non-starter in the Senate, but it’s still an open question about the number of Republicans who might be willing to agree to a package that’s far more limited in size and scope. In fact, I don’t think every GOP senator has made up their mind, and the contacts from constituents over the next few days could very well sway them to one side or the other. Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Loomis, for instance, mentioned on Tuesday that she’s been surprised by the number of calls from Wyoming residents who are “receptive… to address guns in some manner.” Loomis said that she’s still of the opinion that this is more a mental health issue than a gun control issue, but added that she’s “listening to what people from Wyoming are saying.”

If Loomis is listening, I guarantee other senators are too, and I’d encourage you to reach out and let your senators know where you stand, especially once the details of any “compromise” package have been released.

GOP congressman drops re-election bid after blowback over support for gun ban

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On Friday morning, we reported that New York Rep. Chris Jacobs, a Republican from western New York who declared that he’d vote for a ban on so-called assault weapons, restrictions on magazines, and other gun control measures in the wake of the mass shooting at a Buffalo grocery store, was facing a sudden primary challenge over his about-face on the Second Amendment. Well, Jacobs no longer has to worry about fending off a primary opponent, because he’s not going to be on the ballot.

Friday was the deadline for Jacobs to drop out of the race, and yesterday afternoon the first-term Republican announced his decision to end his re-election campaign after the overwhelming response he received from constituents who object to his newfound fondness for criminalizing the right to keep and bear arms.

“We have a problem in our country in terms of both our major parties. If you stray from a party position, you are annihilated,” Mr. Jacobs said on Friday. “For the Republicans, it became pretty apparent to me over the last week that that issue is gun control. Any gun control.”

Citing the thousands of gun permits he had issued as Erie County clerk, Mr. Jacobs stressed that he was a supporter of the Second Amendment and wanted to avoid a brutal intraparty fight that would have been inevitable had he stayed in the race.

But he warned Republicans that their “absolute position on this” would hurt the party in the long run.

“Look, if you’re not going to take a stand on something like this, I don’t know what you’re going to take a stand on,” Mr. Jacobs added.

First off, Jacobs wasn’t just calling for “any” gun control. He was demanding Congress ban the most commonly-sold rifle in the country and magazines that are in the possession tens of millions of gun owners. And while it’s great that Jacobs approved “thousands of gun permits” while he was Erie County clerk, that was also his job. His current position includes an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, and he ran for office and was elected two years ago on the promise of defending the right to keep and bear arms. He shouldn’t be shocked or surprised to learn that many conservatives in his district, who’ve seen the ineffectiveness of sweeping gun control laws like New York’s SAFE ACT firsthand, aren’t eager for Congress to replicate those mistakes and constitutional infringements on the federal level.

“His heart is in a good place, but he’s wrong in his thinking as far as we are concerned,” said Ralph C. Lorigo, the longtime chairman of the Erie County Conservative Party. “This quick jump that all of the sudden it’s the gun that kills people as opposed to the person is certainly not 100 percent true.”

Mr. Lorigo said he had vouched for Mr. Jacobs earlier this year when other conservatives doubted him. But this past Monday, he demanded the congressman come to his office and made clear he would encourage a primary challenge.

“He understood that this was potentially political suicide,” Mr. Lorigo said.

Even before he made his decision, several Republicans were already lining up to run against Mr. Jacobs, angered at both his comments and the way in which he had surprised fellow members of his party, including some who had already endorsed him.

“We deserved the courtesy of a heads up,” said State Senator George Borrello, a second-term Republican from Irving, N.Y., south of Buffalo, who said he did not believe that Mr. Jacobs’s remarks were “an off-the-cuff emotional response,” but were planned in advance.

Mr. Borrello, who said on Friday that he was now considering running for the seat, added that Mr. Jacobs’s actions were particularly galling considering the congressman had “actively and aggressively” sought out the support of pro-gun groups like the N.R.A. and the 1791 Society.

“And those people rightfully feel betrayed,” he said.

I honestly wish that Jacobs had decided to stay in the race, if only to finally demonstrate that the type of gun control laws he embraced aren’t nearly as popular with the electorate as public polling makes them out to be. If broad swathes of the electorate are truly eager to see bans on “assault weapons” and “large capacity” magazines, then Jacobs’ comments should have helped him with voters. Instead, his own internal polling apparently showed he “may have still had a path to re-election, though not an easy one,” according to the New York Times, which I translate as “he was going to get his butt handed to him”.

I guess we’ll never know for sure, but Jacobs certainly seems convinced that was what his future held if he stayed in the race. I have no idea who will be the Republican candidate for NY-27, but I guarantee they’re not going to be campaigning on turning tens of thousands of their constituents into criminals for keeping ahold of the guns and magazines they lawfully purchased and responsibly possess.