Evan Vucci/AP Photo
President Biden speaks about the latest round of mass shootings, from the East Room of the White House in Washington, June 2, 2022.
The Senate is on track to enact “bipartisan” gun legislation that falls far short of what’s needed to prevent mass gun violence. What’s needed is a ban on sales of military assault weapons that serve no purpose other than to kill people. But that’s not even on the table.
President Biden has been caught between two contradictory strategies. One is to achieve something that can pass for incremental “progress.” The other is to make clear that the blood of children is on the hands of Republicans, and to remind voters that this key issue differentiates the two parties. It’s hard to do both things.
In his Thursday prime-time speech, the struggle was palpable. Biden explicitly called for a ban on assault weapons and on high-capacity magazines, items not on the agenda of a bipartisan Senate working group. He added, “My God, the fact that the majority of the Senate Republicans don’t want any of these proposals even to be debated or come up for a vote, I find unconscionable.”
Amen. But as a number of commentators have pointed out, you don’t trash the other side when you are ostensibly seeking common ground.
An annoyed Lindsey Graham tweeted that he was “ready to work across the aisle to find common ground—something that was absent from President Biden’s address to the nation.” And another Republican who is part of the Senate group seeking compromise, Pat Toomey, chided Biden for putting forth “policies that he knows for sure have no chance of passing the Senate, probably couldn’t even get 50 votes and hold the Democrats, much less get the 60 we would need.”
Biden is in a tough spot because some of the Democratic senators who are the most passionate champions of gun control, such as Connecticut’s Chris Murphy, are hoping to get half a loaf. But that could well turn out to be crumbs.
Among the proposals under discussion are red-flag laws, or better background checks. It’s not at all clear that these would have stopped the shooters in the Buffalo or Uvalde massacres; or the man who killed his spine surgeon and three others at a Tulsa hospital because his back still hurt.
The bipartisan deal under discussion won’t come close to solving the problem. But it will give Republicans cover to claim that they have made progress and are not the gun nuts their critics depict.
On both counts, Biden’s own gut instincts are far better than the advice of those around him to support an incremental compromise. The Republicans are indeed unconscionable, and worse. Public opinion seems to grasp that. It’s Biden’s moment to lead.
