Tag Archives: Gun Control

Latest gun control bid falters in Congress, Democrat sit-in ends

Democrats walk out of Capitol Hill after failing the gun control law

By Richard Cowan and Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Another attempt at gun control faltered in the U.S. Congress on Thursday despite outrage at the Orlando massacre, as a proposed ban on firearms sales to people being monitored for links to terrorism barely avoided being killed in the Senate.

In a procedural vote, the Senate narrowly rejected an attempt to scrap the plan by Republican Senator Susan Collins to prevent guns getting into the hands of people on two U.S. government terrorism watch lists.

But the proposal looked short of the support it would need to advance through the chamber, and Republican leaders said the Senate would switch from debating gun control to other matters until at least after the July 4 holiday.

It was the latest setback for proponents of gun restrictions who have been thwarted for years on Capitol Hill by gun rights defenders and the National Rifle Association.

Frequent efforts at gun control have failed despite anger at mass shootings like the killings at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 and in San Bernardino, California, last year.

“Eventually this problem will get addressed again one of two ways: We find a breakthrough, which I will seek, or there will be another terrorist attack which will bring us right back to this issue. I hope we can do it without another terrorist attack,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican who supported Collins.

A few hours earlier, Democratic lawmakers ended a sit-in protest in the House of Representatives over guns.

Fueled by Chinese food and pizzas, dozens of them stayed on the House floor all night, at times bursting into the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” before giving up their protest after 25 hours.

“It’s not a struggle that lasts for one day, or one week, or one month, or one year,” said Representative John Lewis, a Democrat from Georgia and a key figure in the civil rights protests of the 1960s. “We’re going to win the struggle,” said Lewis, who led the House sit-in.

Dramatic protests by legislators are rare in the U.S. Capitol and the sit-in underscored how sensitive the gun control issue became after this month’s Florida attack, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Opinion polls show Americans are increasingly in favor of more restrictions on guns in a country with more than 310 million weapons, about one for every citizen.

ORLANDO ATTACK

After a gunman pledging allegiance to Islamic State fatally shot 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, some senators had seen resistance to gun restrictions softening because the issue had partly become one of national security.

But Collins’ measure received only 52 votes in the 100-seat Senate test vote, short of the 60 votes that would be needed for approval in future Senate procedural votes.

While her plan could be revived next month, it is unclear if she has the momentum to overcome pro-gun rights forces in Congress who argue that gun control measures in Congress have been too restrictive and trample on the constitutional right to bear arms. Four other gun control measures failed earlier this week.

Collins, a Maine lawmaker, wants to forbid gun sales to anyone on the U.S. government’s “No Fly List” for terrorism suspects or the “Selectee List” of people who receive extra security screening at airports.

Despite the lack of legislation, the gun debate has stirred passions. The House Democrats’ sit-in brought an outpouring of grass-roots activity.

Jennifer Hoppe, deputy director of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said that in less than 24 hours from Wednesday, about 130,000 calls were made from supporters of gun control to members of Congress.

First lady Michelle Obama backed the House Democrats’ protest.

“We have grieved for too many children and wept for too many families after shootings. Chicago. Tucson. Newtown. Charleston. Orlando. #Enough,” she wrote on Twitter on Thursday.

The Democrats were seeking votes on legislation to expand background checks for gun purchases, as well as measures to curb the sale of weapons to people on government watch lists

Republicans allied with the NRA gun rights group say that while they want to combat terrorism, they represent constituents who believe firmly in the constitutional right to bear arms.

“It’s a tough issue. For people like myself, who come from a hunting and fishing state, it’s pretty hard,” said Senator Orrin Hatch, a conservative Utah Republican who voted against Collins.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Timothy Ahmann, Timothy Gardner and Eric Walsh, Doina Chiacu; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Bill Trott and Peter Cooney)

Senators working to craft new gun control compromise

A gun rights supporter openly carries two pistols strapped to his leg during a rally in support of the Michigan Open Carry gun law in Romulus

By Susan Cornwell and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of Republican senators on Friday were trying to craft compromise gun control legislation that could attract both Republicans and Democrats and have a hope of passing the U.S. Senate, unlike several measures that are expected to be voted on next week for which prospects appear dim.

Congress is under pressure to act after the massacre last Sunday of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. But the gun control issue is deeply divisive and there have been no restrictions passed since 1994, when Congress imposed a ban on semi-automatic assault weapons. That expired after 10 years.

The new effort, led by Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, would aim to close a loophole in U.S. law that allows people on terrorism watch lists to buy weapons and explosives.

Both the gunman in the Orlando attack and the married couple who carried out a mass shooting that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, last December were thought to have been inspired by militant Islamist groups abroad.

Collins’ proposal likely would be offered in the divided, Republican-controlled Senate sometime next week – assuming that four other gun-control proposals set for votes on Monday fail, as expected.

Collins’ office declined to provide a detailed account of legislation she is working on with Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire.

But Collins discussed the project with journalists outside the Senate on Thursday, noting that barring people on terrorism watch lists from weapons purchases carried with it the risk of affecting people who have been swept onto the lists without good cause.

“What we’re trying to do is not deny constitutional rights to a large group of individuals” who find themselves on watch lists despite the fact that there might not be credible evidence of potential criminal intentions, Collins said.

At least one Senate Democrat, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, has been involved in the talks, according to a spokeswoman.

A Senate Republican aide who asked not to be identified, said the bill “will aim to have teeth on preventing terrorists from getting guns and contain protections for due process” for those who should not be denied their rights to buy weapons.

It will not be known whether a Collins bill would attract wide bipartisan support until the measure is unveiled.

On Monday evening, senators are scheduled to vote on two Republican and two Democratic amendments dealing with expanded background checks for gun buyers and denying sales to those on watch lists.

Democrats have criticized the Republican measures as being ineffective and Republicans have accused Democrats of crafting bills that would trample constitutional rights to bear arms.

The competing watch-list proposals were defeated in the Senate last December, following the shooting in San Bernardino.

“Rather than doing Ground Hog Day, I think its time for a new approach and a more targeted one,” Collins said in an apparent reference to a 1993 film in which the main character is doomed to relive the same unpleasant day over and over again.

Lawmakers are looking at whether to ban guns to prospective buyers who are on a broad terrorist watch list that is run by the FBI, but not on one of the subset lists such as the “no-fly” list, she said, adding that there could still be an “alert” to law enforcement officials that the purchase was being made.

U.S. authorities maintain several watch lists – the FBI maintains three and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence runs one database. People are placed on such a list according to the threat level they are believed to pose.

The Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, had been on a government watch list at one point when he was being investigated by federal authorities in 2013 and 2014, but was not on it at the time of his weapons purchase. The couple who carried out the San Bernardino shooting were not on watch lists.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell and Richard Cowan; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Senate Republicans agree to vote on gun control: Democratic senator

Gun Control meeting of politicans

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy ended a blockade of the Senate after nearly 15 hours on Thursday, saying Republicans agreed to hold votes on measures to expand background checks and prevent people on U.S. terrorism watch lists from buying guns.

Democrats stalled Senate proceedings on Wednesday in a bid to push for tougher gun control legislation following Sunday’s massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and spoke on the Senate floor through out the night.

Republicans, who currently have a 54-person majority in the Senate, have over the years blocked gun control measures, saying they step on Americans’ right to bear arms as guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

“When we began there was no commitment, no plan to debate these measures,” Murphy, of Connecticut, said during the 15th hour of the filibuster early on Thursday.

He said Democrats were given a commitment by the Senate’s Republican leadership that votes would be allowed on two measures on preventing gun sales to people on terrorism watch lists and expanding background checks.

“No guarantee that those amendments pass but we’ll have some time to … prevail upon members to take these measures and turn them into law,” Murphy said.

With Republicans and the National Rifle Association gun lobby under pressure to respond to the massacre, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would meet with the NRA to discuss ways to block people on terrorism watch or no-fly lists from buying guns.

The Senate had began discussions on legislation to ban firearm sales to the hundreds of thousands of people on U.S. terrorism watch lists. The Orlando gunman, who carried out the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, had been on such a list.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urged senators on Wednesday to offer ideas on how to prevent another attack like the one in Orlando.

Late on Wednesday Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said negotiations “were little more than a smokescreen by Republicans trying to give themselves political cover while they continue to march in lock-step with the NRA’s extreme positions.”

If Congress was to pass a gun control measure, it would mark the first time in more than 20 years that lawmakers agreed on how to address the hot-button issue. A ban on semi-automatic assault weapons, such as the one used in Orlando, had gone into effect in 1994 and expired 10 years later.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Writing Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Bill Trott)

No constitutional right to concealed guns: U.S. appeals court

Guns at Cabela's

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Firearm owners have no constitutional right to carry a concealed gun in public, a divided U.S. appeals court in California ruled on Thursday, upholding the right of officials to only grant permits to those facing a specific danger.

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a victory for gun control advocates which sets a legal precedent in western states, was seen as unlikely to be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the near future.

The San Francisco-based court, in a 7-4 decision, found California’s San Diego and Yolo counties did not violate the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects the right to bear arms, when they denied some applicants a concealed firearm license.

“We hold that the Second Amendment does not protect, in any degree, the carrying of concealed firearms by members of the general public,” Judge William Fletcher wrote in a 52-page opinion.

Sheriffs in the two California counties had limited their permits to applicants showing “good cause” to be armed, such as documented threats or working in a wide range of risky occupations.

The ruling places the 9th Circuit Court in line with other U.S. appellate courts that have upheld the right of officials in the states of New York, Maryland and New Jersey to deny concealed carry applications in certain cases.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2013, in the middle of a raging national debate on guns, declined to weigh in on whether firearm owners have a constitutional right to carry concealed guns.

The 9th Circuit Court’s opinion noted the Supreme Court had not answered the question of whether the Second Amendment ensures a right to carry firearms openly, as opposed to concealed under clothing.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Consuelo Callahan wrote that her colleagues on the 9th Circuit had gone too far. “The Second Amendment is not a ‘second class’ amendment,” she wrote.

Under California’s concealed carry law, more than 70,000 residents or less than 1 percent of the state’s population had active permits last year, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris applauded the ruling while Chuck Michel, president of gun rights group the California Rifle and Pistol Association, criticized it.

“This decision will leave good people defenseless, as it completely ignores the fact that law-abiding Californians who reside in counties with hostile sheriffs will now have no means to carry a firearm outside the home for personal protection,” Michel said in a statement.

If plaintiffs appeal, the Supreme Court may refrain from reviewing the case because other U.S. circuit courts have also upheld certain requirements for concealed carry permits, said University of California, Los Angeles, law professor Adam Winkler in an email.

The decision by the full 9th Circuit reversed a 2-1 decision in 2014 by a panel of the appellate court that found California residents have an inherent right to a concealed weapon for self defense.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Richard Chang and Tom Brown)

TSA discovers record number of firearms in carry-on bags

Nearly 2,200 people attempted to bring loaded firearms through airport security checkpoints in the United States last year, the Transportation Security Administration announced Thursday.

The discoveries were part of a record number of firearms that TSA officials found in carry-on bags at airport checkpoints across the country, the administration said in its year-end report.

The TSA said it found an all-time high of 2,653 firearms in carry-on bags in 2015, and 2,198 of those weapons were loaded. The number of loaded firearms discovered almost equals the 2,212 loaded and unloaded firearms that TSA officers found in 2014, the former record number.

Travelers aren’t allowed to pack weapons in carry-on bags, but the TSA reports seeing a significant rise in the number of firearms it finds while screening the bags at checkpoints.

Officers found just 660 firearms in 2005, yet that has more than quadrupled in the years since. There was a 20 percent increase in the number of firearms discovered between 2014 and 2015.

TSA Administrator Peter V. Neffenger issued a statement on the discoveries, saying better training has helped officers become “more adept at intercepting these prohibited items.”

The statement didn’t address if there were any other potential factors for the increase, such as a possible rise in the number of people who were trying to fly with weapons in their carry-on bags.

Travelers can transport firearms in their checked bags, the TSA says, but the guns must be unloaded and properly packed. Travelers also must inform the airline that the luggage contains a firearm.

Still, the TSA said it’s finding the firearms in carry-ons at more airports — 236 last year, up 12 from 2014.

TSA officers at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport found more firearms in carry-on bags than their counterparts at any other airport, the TSA said, with 153 discoveries in total. Officers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (144) and Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport (100) each recorded 100 or more discoveries.

Denver International Airport (90), Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (73), Nashville International Airport (59), Seattle-Tacoma International (59), Dallas Love Field Airport (57), Austin-Bergstrom International (54) and William P. Hobby Airport (52) rounded out the top 10, the TSA reported. Five of the top 10 airports with the most firearm discoveries are located in Texas.

The discoveries came the same year amid a troubling year for the TSA.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson removed the administration’s former acting administrator, Melvin Carraway, from his post in June after the Inspector General’s office conducted tests in which auditors tried to bring prohibited items through security checkpoints.

Inspector General John Roth testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in November, saying the results of their most recent tests yielded “disappointing and troubling” results.

“Our testing was designed to test checkpoint operations in real world conditions. It was not designed to test specific, discrete segments of checkpoint operations, but rather the system as a whole,” Roth told the committee. “The failures included failures in the technology, failures in TSA procedures, and human error. We found layers of security simply missing.”

Johnson issued a variety of new directives after receiving the preliminary test results in an effort to boost airport security and correct some of the shortcomings the auditors identified.

Obama Announces New Gun Control Measures, Including Background Check Changes

President Barack Obama on Tuesday unveiled new measures that would govern gun sales and safety in the United States, actions he said are geared toward reducing gun violence by preventing the weapons from ending up in the hands of people who may use them nefariously.

Speaking in a televised address from the East Room of the White House, Obama listed mass shootings while detailing an executive order he said were designed to close loopholes in existing laws and make it tougher for people to obtain the weapons used in the deadly rampages.

The new measures would enhance the vetting process, requiring anyone who is “in the business of selling firearms” to obtain a selling license and conduct background checks. That’s not always the case under the current system, which has more lenient rules for gun-show and online sales.

“We know that we can’t stop every act of violence,” Obama conceded. “But what if we tried to stop even one?”

Opponents and gun rights activists immediately spoke out against Obama’s order, saying the president’s actions can not usurp American’s constitutional right to bear arms. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) issued a statement in which he said the president’s “words and actions amount to a form of intimidation that undermines liberty,” and said there was “no doubt” that someone would challenge the directive, which doesn’t need Congressional approval, in court.

In his address, Obama said the order was not an infringement of the Second Amendment and noted Americans were guaranteed additional rights and freedoms that gun violence was hampering, noting guns contribute to the deaths of 30,000 Americans every year. The president expressed a need to balance those other freedoms and rights with the right to bear arms.

He specifically mentioned the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

“Those rights were stripped from college kids in Blacksburg and Santa Barbara and from high schoolers at Columbine and from first-graders in Newtown,” Obama said, referencing campus shootings at Virginia Tech, UC Santa Barbara, Columbine High School and Sandy Hook Elementary School. “And from every family who never imagined that their loved one would be taken from our lives by a bullet from a gun. Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad.”

Obama also referenced mass shootings at a military facility in Fort Hood, Texas, a church in Charleston, South Carolina, the Washington Navy Yard, a holiday party in San Bernardino, California, and a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, on a list that included “too many” instances of gun violence. The president said it was time “not to debate the last shooting, but do something to try to prevent the next one.”

Several Democrats lauded the president’s efforts. They include former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was injured during a mass shooting in Tuscon five years ago this week. She attended the address and tweeted Obama’s “responsible actions … will save lives.”

However, the National Rifle Association issued a statement saying that none of Obama’s proposals would have stopped any of the “horrific events he mentioned” during his speech.

“Once again, President Obama has chosen to engage in political rhetoric, instead of offering meaningful solutions to our nation’s pressing problems,” Chris W. Cox, the executive director of the association’s Institute for Legislative Action, said in a statement. “Today’s event also represents an ongoing attempt to distract attention away from his lack of a coherent strategy to keep the American people safe from terrorist attack. The American people do not need more emotional, condescending lectures that are completely devoid of facts.”

The main point of Obama’s executive order is undoubtedly reforming background checks.

Those checks have already prevented 2 million guns from being sold to people who cannot legally purchase them, the White House said in a news release, and the executive order aims to bolster the strength and overall efficiency of the system. The FBI is planning to hire 230 additional employees to process the 63,000 background check requests it receives every day, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms is working to finalize rules that would prevent people from circumventing the background check requirements for particularly dangerous guns.

The order also calls for better enforcement of existing gun laws, and Obama’s budget for fiscal year 2017 includes funding that would allow the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms to hire 200 additional agents and investigators. The president is also pushing for better gun safety technology, directing officials with the Homeland Security, Justice and Defense departments to help study how to prevent guns from firing accidentally, and proposing $500 million for nationwide improvements to mental health treatment.