Deep divides linger in Senate gun fight

Senators remain deeply divided about new gun restrictions following the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, imperiling odds of a legislative response to the mass shooting at a gay nighclub in Orlando.

Lawmakers emerged from a more than hourlong meeting with federal law enforcement officials split along multiple lines and appeared far from a compromise that could gain any steam.

Talks to reconcile the different sides or revive previously considered pieces of legislation are ongoing, lawmakers insisted. But so far they seem to stand little chance.

{mosads}“I don’t think that’s going to work out,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said late on Wednesday afternoon.

Feinstein introduced an amendment to a spending package sitting before the Senate that would allow the government to block someone from buying a gun if they were suspected to be a terrorist and also notify the Justice Department if anyone who was been under investigation for suspected terrorism in the previous five years attempts to buy a gun.

A similar measure was batted down last December but has gained new prominence following the revelation that the Orlando gunman, Omar Mateen, was the target of a federal investigation for roughly 10 months in 2013 and 2014, two years before his Sunday morning massacre. That earlier version did not include the measure notifying the government if a former terrorist suspect bought a firearm.  

“This would allow, when he went in for the background check, that would ring a bell in the system,” Feinstein said.

She gave a copy of her proposal to No. 2 Senate Republican John Conryn (Texas), she told reporters after a meeting with FBI and Department of Homeland Security officials, but “I was told he gave it to the NRA,” referring to the National Rifle Association.

“Now, that would do it.”

Democrats seized control of the Senate floor on Wednesday to focus attention on the gun issue, launching an hourslong takeover to protest congressional inaction in the wake of the Orlando shooting.

Cornyn, who has been pushing his own contrasting proposal, seemed similarly hesitant about the path forward.

“We’re trying to find out … whether this is an effort to find a solution and common ground or whether this is just an effort to try to embarrass people,” he told The Hill Wednesday evening. “I haven’t yet concluded which one it is.” 

Feinstein is “still working with others,” she said, though the prospects remain unclear.

Cornyn has pushed a separate measure that could allow for the Justice Department to block a gun sale to a suspected terrorist for 72 hours, at which point the government would have to turn to the courts. 

Republicans have rallied around that bill, claiming that proposals to limit the access of people on government watchlists to firearms would undermine Americans’ Second Amendment rights without due process.

“The problem is simple: You have a constitutional right to free speech, you have a constitutional right to possess a firearm,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). “So if you’re going to restrict a constitutional right, you need to give the person who’s having that liberty restricted to have an opportunity, at least, to defend him or herself.”

However, small cracks might be beginning to show. 

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who had supported the Cornyn proposal last year, on Wednesday told reporters that it “doesn’t do the job.”

Hopes for new gun legislation appeared to get a small boost on Wednesday, when presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump indicated that he supported prohibiting people on terrorism watchlists from being able to buy guns. Trump would be bringing the matter up during an upcoming meeting with the NRA, he said.

Amid the debate between Feinstein and Conryn’s proposals, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) is planning to introduce a bill of his own Thursday.

Toomey’s legislation would require the attorney general to create a list of “likely terrorists,” who would be unable to buy guns. The list would then be submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which would review it annually and remove any Americans inadvertently included, according to a summary of the forthcoming bill from his office.

Toomey, who is in a tough reelection fight, had previously sided with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on legislation to expand gun background checks. Manchin said on Wednesday that he wants to see that bill revived.

“We’d like to see at least two amendments,” he told reporters. “We’d like to see one on terrorist watchlist and one on Manchin-Toomey.

“They go hand in hand.”

Jordain Carney contributed