Gun control takes center stage on Capitol Hill
Gun control took center stage on Capitol Hill on Monday with four amendments are on the table: two sponsored from Republicans, two from Democrats.
The vote comes just over a week since the tragedy in a Orlando nightclub, killing 49 people and injuring 53 others; however, none of the measures are expected to pass given a bitterly divided Congress.
“Even if something could get passed in the senate, it would be dead on arrival in the republican controlled, more conservative House of Representatives,” says Salisbury University political science professor Dr. Michael O’Loughlin.
One amendment, proposed by Iowa Senator Chuck Grassey, clarifies mental health issues that would disqualify someone from buying a gun.
An amendment by Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy requires every gun purchaser to undergo a background check and expanding the background check database.
Texas Senator John Cornyn has proposed an amendment that would alert law enforcement when anyone on the terror watch list attempts to buy a weapon from a licensed dealer. Under his proposal, if the buyer has been investigated for terrorism within the past five years, then the attorney general could block a sale for up to three days while a court reviews the sale.
The fourth amendment proposed by California Senator Dianne Feinstein would ould block gun sales from anyone on the no-fly list plus those suspected of being likely to engage in terrorism.
Bob Arthur, owner of Arthur’s Shooters Supply in Berlin, says he’s not convinced these measures would help civilians.
“It’s not about guns, it’s about evil people,” Arthur says. “It’s political, it’s all political and it’s bad for this country.”
Arthur tells 47ABC there’s already background checks conducted through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (“NICS”) in place.
“If they don’t want somebody to have a gun, they can go ahead and delay them and then all they have to do is call back the shop owner and they’re denied,” he explains.
Like Dr. O’Loughlin, Arthur says he would not be surprised if nothing passes on Monday.
“There’s hundreds of millions of guns in this country,” Arthur says. “They can’t take them away from us.”
Now if nothing gets passed Monday, Dr. O’Loughlin says it is likely that the topic of gun-control will set the tone for this fall’s election.
He says democrats will claim they’ve proposed reasonable options for gun control but in doing so, argue that republicans have stalled to take action; however, O’Loughlin says republicans will likely argue that the bigger issue would be the fight against terrorism.
