Senate shoots down latest efforts to tighten gun laws
WASHINGTON - A partisan divide on Monday blocked the four latest Senate proposals meant to curb gun violence, providing no change in the nation's gun laws but adding to this election year's political fodder.
WASHINGTON
- A partisan divide on Monday blocked the four latest Senate proposals meant to curb gun violence, providing no change in the nation's gun laws but adding to this election year's political fodder.
With the Orlando massacre still fresh, the stakes were particularly high in Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race, where Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) has trumpeted his support for expanding background checks on gun buyers and Democratic challenger Katie McGinty has attacked him as failing to take real action.
The votes featured two Democratic bills - to expand background checks and bar firearms purchases by anyone on a federal terrorist watch list - and two Republican alternatives.
None passed, but each helped fuel acrimony on both sides of the debate.
Democrats said they were offering modest steps to address an epidemic of violence, while accusing Republicans of bowing to the National Rifle Association and putting up weak bills for political cover.
"Our Republican colleagues are again stuck in the same rut, the same warp, giving in to the demands of the NRA," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said before the votes.
Republicans said the Democratic measures would strip innocent gun buyers of Second Amendment rights while giving them little legal recourse to challenge authorities if they were unfairly or mistakenly added to a terror watch list.
Lawmakers should focus on fighting terrorism, said Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas), "not on restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens under the Second Amendment without due process of law."
The votes fell largely along party lines.
Toomey voted for the two Republicans versions, and against both Democratic bills. Sens. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D., Pa.), Bob Menendez (D, N.J.), and Cory A. Booker (D., N.J.) voted for the Democratic plans.
None of the measures - introduced as amendments to a larger spending bill - won the 60 votes needed to advance. And though there is still talk of a compromise bill to stop gun purchases by suspected terrorists, it's not clear whether a deal can be reached or a vote will be allowed.
"We're talking past each other," Toomey said on the Senate floor. "We've got a series of votes designed to all fail."
He has been a much-watched figure in the gun debate since 2013, when he won praise from gun-control advocates for sponsoring, with Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W. Va.), a bill to expand background checks to cover sales at gun shows and in other forums. Now locked in a race that some say could determine the control of the Senate, he has promoted those efforts as evidence of his bipartisan credentials, highlighting the measure in campaign ads.
Toomey said that background-check bill should have been put up for a vote Monday. Instead, he complained that the Democratic plan to close background-check loopholes was too broad. It did not, for example, include exemptions for transfers between family members, as Toomey-Manchin did.
Seeking to unseat him, McGinty said Toomey's votes placed him on the same side of the issue as Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas).
"The idea that Pat Toomey is moderate on guns just isn't true, and unfortunately it seems that today he's going to prove that again," she told reporters hours before the votes. "Talk is cheap - the power of a senator is the power of their vote."
McGinty has attacked Toomey for voting against a Democratic plan to close the "terror gap" that allows terror suspects to pass background checks for gun purchases.
The bill would let federal authorities stop gun sales to people when they have "a reasonable belief" that the weapon would be used in connection to terrorism.
Toomey, however, said the proposal offered no meaningful way for ordinary gun buyers to challenge those decisions, potentially subjecting innocent people to errors or abuse, and relegating firearms sales to a secret list kept by the government.
He also criticized the GOP version for not giving law enforcement enough power to act - it would give authorities 72 hours to get a court order blocking a firearm sale to a terror suspect - but said that plan would at least be better than current law. He voted for it and against the Democratic version.
Last week, Toomey offered his own "terror gap" bill, which he said aimed for a middle ground, but it was quickly rejected: Democrats said it was worse than earlier GOP proposals, and Republicans declined to put it up for a vote.
The fourth bill, from Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), sought to beef up the information shared with the federal background-check system, but would not expand such checks to cover any more types of gun sales.
"Tonight, the Senate defaulted on its basic obligation to keep America safe," Casey said in a news release. "Condolences are not enough, only action will meet the test of justice."
The votes came after Booker helped lead a nearly 15-hour blockade on the Senate floor last week, urging Republicans to allow votes on gun bills.
"We've built up, I think, a lot of momentum. The fight's not over yet," he said after the votes.
Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine) is working on building bipartisan support for yet another plan to address gun buys by terrorism suspects. Watching the votes from the Senate gallery was Shira Goodman, executive director of CeaseFirePA, which pushes for more restrictive gun laws.
"This is a long time for nothing to change," Goodman said. "I think there's a lot of people that are going to be frustrated."
@JonathanTamari