US Senate blocks proposals to curb gun sales

Washington: The Senate on Monday failed to advance four separate measures aimed at curbing gun sales, the latest display of congressional inaction after a mass shooting.

Eight days after a gunman claiming allegiance to the Daesh killed 49 people in an Orlando, Florida, nightclub, the Senate deadlocked, largely along party lines, on amendments to block people on the federal terrorism watch list from buying guns and to close loopholes in background check laws. Families of gun violence victims looked on from the Senate chamber as the votes were held.

Further action on gun safety measures or mental health provisions seemed unlikely before the fall election, given the rush to finish a series of spending bills and the relatively limited time that Congress will be in session before November.

In addition, the four gun measures were attached to legislation that contains several other thorny issues, such as the question of whether to take passports away from terrorism suspects, which suggests there will be little chance for further debate.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has been working on a compromise, disliked by both party leaders, that would bar the sale of guns to terrorism suspects who appear on either the government’s no-fly list or the so-called selectee list of people who receive additional scrutiny at airports. That bill, which is not as broad as the Democratic watch-list measure that failed Monday, could surface later in the week.

Partisanship and the power of the gun lobby played a large role in the amendments’ failure. Democrats structured their bills in a way that was almost certain to repel Republicans, while Republicans responded with bills equally distasteful to Democrats.

Democrats vowed to hammer Republicans during the campaign this fall.

“Our constituents see a disturbing pattern of inaction,” Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said Monday on the Senate floor. “Sadly, our efforts are blocked by the Republican Congress, who take their marching orders from the National Rifle Association.”

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, introduced one of the failed measures, which could have prevented anyone on the federal terrorism watch list and other terrorist databases from buying firearms or explosives. Democrats tried unsuccessfully to pass the measure after the shooting in San Bernardino, California, in December.

“It’s time for us to stand up,” Feinstein said.

Republicans, arguing that the list of people affected would be too broad and that the measure would not offer proper due process, put forward a competing measure. That amendment would have required the government to delay, during a 72-hour review period, the purchase of a gun by anyone who is a terrorism suspect or has been the subject of a terrorism investigation within the last five years.

“No one wants terrorists to be able to buy guns or explosives,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said Monday on the Senate floor.

The two other measures that failed included one offered by Senator Chris Murphy, who led a filibuster last week to make a point on guns. His measure sought to tighten background checks for gun buyers at gun shows and on the internet. Republicans offered a measure that was more focused on the mental health system.

The Obama administration, which has been pushing for a variety of new gun control legislation, vowed to press on.

“The view of the administration is that the American people should be engaged in the debate,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said Monday. “So the fact that this is something that is being actively debated and considered in the Senate does represent incremental progress.”

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has largely supported the positions of most Republicans, who want to preserve gun rights. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has made her support for gun control a central tenet of her campaign.

Senator Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s rival for the Democratic nomination, voted with the party from the Senate chamber, looking glum as colleagues came to greet him.

The votes were taken on the same day that the Supreme Court declined to hear a Second Amendment challenge to a Connecticut law, enacted in 2013 after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, that bans many semi-automatic rifles.

The Senate measures seemed doomed almost as soon as they were offered. After the Sandy Hook massacre, a bipartisan background check measure failed, even though Democrats controlled the Senate.

Democrats, now in the minority, replaced that measure with the amendment sponsored by Murphy, which would have expanded background checks to all gun sales except loans and gifts between family members. Republicans said it was too broad. And even Senator Jon Tester of Montana, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, voted against it.