SFC13557
NES Member
Some sticking points remain between Republicans and Democrats in push to pass a bill next week
We'll see, I hope it blows up in the RINO's face.
From today's WSJ.
"WASHINGTON—Senators drafting gun-control legislation are working to overcome sticking points between Republicans and Democrats to stay on track to pass a bill next week.
Key negotiators wanted to release legislative text before Friday. Late Wednesday, though, they said they were stuck on drafting the language for two provisions. One would provide federal grants to states to enforce red-flag laws that allow authorities to remove guns temporarily from people threatening violence, and the other would close the “boyfriend loophole” that allows convicted domestic abusers to buy guns if they aren’t married to their partner.
Lawmakers and gun-control advocates say the laws would be particularly effective in preventing suicide. In 2020, 54% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. were suicides while 43% were murders, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the Republican leading the talks, told reporters Thursday morning that negotiators were in a “good place” on red-flag language but that reaching a compromise on the boyfriend loophole remained a challenge and that it might have to drop out of the package. “I think that’s one option,” he said.
A person familiar with the talks said that the issues around the red-flag laws weren’t resolved at this point, but lawmakers were making progress.
A bipartisan group of senators planned to meet again Thursday to try to complete a deal in time to vote on the legislation next week.
Ten senators from each party signed on to the framework over the weekend, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) have backed the proposals, which would be the most significant federal legislation on guns in decades.
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the lead Democratic negotiator, said he didn’t expect any elements of the framework to drop out. “I think we can work out all of these issues,” he said.
The framework is the product of bipartisan talks that started after deadly mass shootings at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket and a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school. President Biden and most Democrats have said they would support the policies in the framework, even though it falls short of their broader proposal that passed the House.
At least 60 votes will be required to advance the bill in the 50-50 Senate, under the chamber’s longstanding filibuster rule. That means at least 10 Republicans would have to vote for the bill, if all 50 senators who caucus with Democrats voted as a bloc.
Democrats have been pushing for years to block dating partners convicted of domestic violence from obtaining a firearm. Current laws ban those who are “married to, lived with, or have a child with the victim” and who have been convicted of an abuse felony or are under a restraining order from obtaining a firearm. Democrats want to extend this to serious dating partners, and Republicans are wary about how to define that.
“Part of it, it’s a definitional issue…It already covers people who are married, people who have a child in common and people who are cohabitating, and Democrats want to extend it to other relationships and I’m not clear exactly what it is they want to cover that’s not included in what I just mentioned,” Mr. Cornyn said.
Lawmakers also are debating whether to make the law retroactive to previous crimes or whether it would only apply to convictions going forward, two people familiar with the negotiations said.
The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence says that nearly half of all women killed in the U.S. are murdered by a current or former intimate partner.
On the red-flag laws, Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.), who is involved in the talks, said states that choose not to have red-flag laws but have crisis intervention or treatment programs should be able to qualify for the federal funding too, pointing to veterans courts and mental-health courts as examples.
Lawmakers haven’t set an amount of money for the grants, and Senate negotiators are looking for a way to pay for the entire package, which is expected to cost several billion dollars, by delaying for a year the implementation of a Trump-era Medicare rebate rule.
Nineteen states and the District of Columbia currently have red-flag laws that allow law-enforcement agencies—and sometimes family members or co-workers—to petition judges to issue emergency orders that temporarily remove the firearms of gun owners threatening violence, without the gun owner being present in court. Later on, gun owners can defend themselves at hearings.
Republicans have raised concerns that red-flag laws could violate gun owners’ due-process rights.
The framework also proposes a crackdown on illegal sales of guns, and new funding for mental-health programs and school security. It also would require an investigative period to review juvenile and mental health records for 18-to-21-year-old gun purchasers."
Write to Natalie Andrews at [email protected] and Lindsay Wise at [email protected]