By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Three months after the Newtown, Conn., school massacre, the Senate Judiciary Committee has finally produced three major bills that could each make a significant difference in lowering the number and firepower of guns on the street and keeping them out of the wrong hands. But they have a deeply uncertain future as they head to the Senate floor, underscored by the utterly partisan split in the committee votes.
A bill to ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines: 10 Democrats voted yes, eight Republicans voted no. A bill to require background checks on buyers in all gun sales, including from private sellers: 10 Democrats voted yes, eight Republicans voted no. A bill to stop illegal trafficking of firearms: 10 Democrats and one Republican voted yes, seven Republicans voted no.
Many Republicans claim to share the national concern over unabated violence, but, as the committee hearings showed, whenever there is an opportunity to do something about it, they find a way to object.
During Thursday’s committee discussion of the assault weapons ban, Senator John Cornyn of Texas tried to get an exception for anyone living along the border with Mexico, or anyone living in a rural area, or victims of sexual assault. These amendments — all of which were rejected — were just for show, since he had no intention of voting for the overall bill even if one had been accepted.
“We’re going to give the American citizen a peashooter to defend themselves with,” he said, echoing the gun lobby’s lethal logic that a high level of firepower on both the criminal and noncriminal sides will somehow even things out and make the country safer.
Mr. Cornyn was at least polite. His freshman colleague from Texas, Ted Cruz, was sneering and condescending to the sponsor of the bill, Dianne Feinstein of California. If Congress can pick and choose which guns to permit under the Second Amendment, he demanded to know, could it also choose which books are allowed under the First Amendment? In fact, the Supreme Court made it quite clear in its 2008 decision upholding a right to own a weapon that government has an absolute ability to impose limits on that right, just as the right to free expression doesn’t permit the promulgation of child pornography.
But when your object is to oppose any law that would affect anyone’s ability to own any firearm, common sense and legalities matter little. Many Republicans say they support the background check requirement, but they are demanding that no records be kept of whether the checks take place, which would render the bill unenforceable.
Given the certainty that Republicans will filibuster these bills on the floor, it could be very difficult to get the 60 votes necessary to give them an up-or-down vote. (The assault weapons ban may not even muster a simple majority in the face of the gun lobby’s furious opposition.)
But the need is urgent. As Senator Patrick Leahy, the committee chairman, said on Thursday, “lives are at risk when responsible people fail to stand up for laws that will keep guns out of the hands of those who will use them to commit mass murder.”
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