President Trump is expected to deliver a proposal as early as this week aimed at curbing gun violence, a White House aide said Tuesday.
White House officials have been negotiating with a bipartisan group of lawmakers on a plan that would presumably expand background checks for gun purchases and incentivize “red flag” laws to take guns away from dangerous people.
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Attorney General William Barr has been heavily involved in constructing a proposal, lawmakers said.
A plan could be ready later in the week or early next week, perhaps Monday, the White House aide said. That would provide time for Trump to return from a campaign trip to California and to negotiate with congressional lawmakers on the plan’s details.
Senate lawmakers are eager to hear from the White House and believe Trump holds the key to helping Republicans and Democrats in the Senate craft a bipartisan bill that can pass.
Lawmakers in both parties want to find a legislative response to the recent string of mass shootings over the summer that left dozens dead.
[Related: Trump will determine fate of gun control legislation]
“My sense is the White House has not given up on the issue of finding common ground on background checks,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, a negotiator, told reporters Tuesday. “I’m hopeful to hear from them today.”
Murphy and other Democrats want the president to throw his support behind a House-passed bill expanding background checks to all sales and transfers, with narrow exceptions for immediate family members. The House bill would ban gun sales from non-licensed dealers, but that measure won’t pass the GOP-led Senate.
Murphy said Democrats want background checks expanded to commercial sales, at the very least.
A measure authored by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, and Pat Toomey, R-Pennsylvania, would broaden background checks to all gun store, gun show, online, and classified sales and would carve out exceptions for family members.
Manchin suggested in an interview with reporters Tuesday the White House will include elements of the Manchin-Toomey proposal.
“They are still moving in a very encouraging way from my understanding,” Manchin said. “They are working, and we’ll see what comes out. You’ve got to have the building block of commercial background checks.”
The administration is also weighing language to incentivize states to implement “red flag” laws, which would authorize judges to issue extreme risk protection orders against people deemed too dangerous to own guns.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, has authored a “red flag” bill, and his legislation remains under consideration by the White House, Graham said Tuesday.
Trump is also examining ways to bolster the effectiveness of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which in some instances has failed to flag gun sales that should have been prohibited.
