Recent police-related shootings could stymie President Joe Biden’s agenda to curb gun violence as his proposed measures run up against electoral priorities in Congress and gun ownership trends.
Earlier this week, police shot and killed Daunte Wright, about 10 miles from the courthouse where Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin is on trial for the murder of George Floyd. Chauvin was filmed putting his knee to Floyd’s neck for nine and a half minutes last year.
Wright’s death has sparked new protests in Minneapolis and resurrected calls for defunding the police.
‘THIS IS THE BEGINNING’: WHITE HOUSE SIGNALS MORE TO COME ON GUNS
Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat, called for “no more policing” following Wright’s death on Sunday by a now-former police officer who fired her gun during a traffic stop, later claiming to have intended to pull her Taser instead.
“It wasn’t an accident. Policing in our country is inherently & intentionally racist,” Tlaib tweeted Monday. “Daunte Wright was met with aggression & violence. I am done with those who condone government funded murder. No more policing, incarceration, and militarization. It can’t be reformed.”
Gun sales spiked last year as demonstrators protested police violence across the country, and some prominent Democrats called for stripping all or dramatically reallocating police funding.
“That has an impact whenever the topic is raised,” said Lawrence Keane, assistant secretary and general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
“People will be concerned about personal protection, the protection of their property, and their family,” Keane said, adding that increases in sales typically lessen elected officials’ interest in passing gun control measures “because it’s not perceived as what the public wants.”
The number of background checks tied to the sale of a firearm was 21 million last year, a 60% increase over the previous year.
Spurred by recent mass shootings, Biden announced new actions last week targeting so-called ghost guns, or untraceable firearms, stabilizing braces enabling pistols to be converted into short-barreled rifles, and directing the Justice Department to craft model “red flag” legislation, which allows a judge to order a gun temporarily removed from someone’s possession. The president also called for redirecting federal funding to community violence intervention programs.
Nathan Kasai, senior policy counsel at Third Way, called Biden’s actions last week a good starting point but said legislative action is still needed on background checks and gun safety loopholes. Kasai said he expects Biden to continue pushing for these legislative changes.
During an event in the White House Rose Garden introducing the measures, Biden also reiterated support for legislation to restrict assault-style firearms and high-capacity magazines.
“We should also ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country. For the 10 years we had it done, the number of mass shootings actually went down,” Biden said during remarks in the White House Rose Garden. “There’s no reason someone needs a weapon of war with 100 rounds, 100 bullets that can be fired from that weapon.”
The president also called for stripping liability protections for firearms manufacturers.
While lawmakers have discussed expanding background checks and other measures, Democrats’ narrow majority in the evenly split upper chamber means they would need 10 Republican votes, assuming the support of all 50 Democratic members.
What the president has called for so far could prove a political liability for Democrats in the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections, particularly in battleground states and purple districts where lawmakers are sensitive to attacks from their right.
“We are not hearing any discussion, serious discussion about moving anything like standing modern sporting rifles or restricting standard magazine capacity or things like that,” Keane said of the Senate, referring to assault-style firearms. A standard rifle magazine holds 30 rounds of ammunition.
The House in March passed separate bills to expand background checks and extend the review period but did not introduce an assault weapons-banning measure.
Democrats blame gun control legislation passed in 1993 and 1994 for their losses of the House and Senate during the 1994 midterm elections. In the lead-up to the 1994 elections, Democrats had passed a 10-year assault weapons ban sponsored by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, and passed the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act one year earlier.
In 2014, Senate Democrats lost nine seats and control of the chamber in the midterm elections after debating in 2013 whether to restrict assault-style firearms and high-capacity magazines.
Feinstein is leading a renewed push in the Senate, introducing with Rhode Island Democrat David Cicilline last month legislation on “military-style assault weapons,” and drawing 35 co-sponsors.
Certain reform measures have drawn bipartisan support.
Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott of Florida have voiced support for red flag laws, recently reintroducing a bipartisan bill that would provide federal funding to states to implement these.
Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, a Democrat, and Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent, have co-sponsored the bill, but whether it can advance in the Senate is unclear. Such measures have faced pushback from some advocates, however.
Senate Democrats expect to debate and vote on legislation related to gun violence this year, but Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer has yet to back specific proposals. And as in earlier years, prospects for advancing these look slim.
Congress last came close to passing major gun legislation in 2013, when a bill advanced by Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a Democrat, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, a Republican, to require background checks across commercial gun sales fell six votes short in the Senate.
Schumer has pointed to expanded background checks as one continued area of interest but has so far declined to comment on whether he might push legislation on assault-style weapons. He said last month that he had not discussed a ban on assault weapons with Biden.
“We’re going to discuss that this week in leadership. I talked to Chuck about it yesterday, and he still has not made any decision,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said Monday.
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White House officials should expect the push from outside to continue.
“We continue to witness two tracks of gun violence and tragedies in this country, both which need to be urgently addressed,” Kasai said, calling the ease of access to firearms “the heart of the problem with mass shootings.”
