WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan quartet of senators,
including two National Rifle Association members and two with "F''
ratings from the potent firearms lobby, are quietly trying to find a
compromise on expanding the requirement for gun-sale background checks.
A
deal, given a good chance by several participants and lobbyists, could
add formidable political momentum to one of the key elements of
President Barack Obama's gun control plan. Currently, background checks
are required only for sales by the nation's 55,000 federally licensed
gun dealers, but not for gun show, person-to-person sales or other
private transactions.
The senators' talks have included
discussions about ways to encourage states to make more mental health
records available to the national system and the types of transactions
that might be exempted from background checks, such as sales among
relatives or to those who have permits to carry concealed weapons, said
people who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to
describe the negotiations publicly.
The private discussions
involve liberal Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who is the No. 3 Senate
Democratic leader; West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, an NRA member and one
of the chamber's more moderate Democrats; Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.,
another NRA member and one of the more conservative lawmakers in
Congress; and moderate GOP Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois.
"It will
not limit your ability to borrow your Uncle Willie's hunting rifle or
share a gun with your friend at a shooting range," Schumer said last
week in one of the senators' few public remarks about the package the
group is seeking. He said he believed a bipartisan deal could be
reached.
Polls show that requiring background checks for nearly
all gun purchases has more public support than Obama's proposals to ban
assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, and it is among
those given the best chance of enactment. Even so, it is opposed by the
NRA and many congressional Republicans, who consider it intrusive and
unworkable for a system they say already has flaws.
"My problem
with background checks is you're never going to get criminals to go
through background checks," Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice
president, told the Senate Judiciary Committee at its gun control
hearing last week.
An agreement among the four senators could help
overcome that opposition by opening the door to support from other
conservative Republicans besides Coburn. It also could make it easier to
win backing from Democratic senators from GOP-leaning states, many of
whom face re-election next year and who have been leery of embracing
Obama's proposals.
Schumer and Kirk each have "F'' scores from the NRA, while Coburn and Manchin have "A'' ratings.
Prompted
by the December massacre of 20 first-graders and six adults in Newtown,
Conn., the Democratic-led Judiciary Committee plans to write gun
control legislation in the next few weeks. The committee's chairman,
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has expressed strong support for universal
background checks and it is expected to be a cornerstone of his bill,
but a version of that language with bipartisan support could give the
entire package a boost.
"If the language is meaningful, it would
be obviously a huge step," said Josh Horwitz, executive director of the
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, which represents child welfare,
religious and other groups favoring gun curbs. "To have someone like
Coburn, who's voted consistently with the gun lobby, to come out and
endorse a meaningful background check would be very helpful."
It
is likely that any gun-control bill will need 60 votes to pass the
100-member Senate. Democrats have 55 votes, including two
Democratic-leaning independents.
Leaders of the GOP-run House are
planning to see what, if anything, the Senate passes before moving on
gun legislation. Strategists believe that a measure that passes the
Senate with clear bipartisan support could pressure the House to act.
Federal data on gun purchases is gathered by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which is run by the FBI.
According
to Justice Department estimates, the federal and state governments ran
108 million background checks of firearms sales between 1994 when the
requirement became law and 2009. Of those, 1.9 million — almost 2
percent — were denied, usually because would-be purchasers had criminal
records.
People legally judged to be "mentally defective" are
among those blocked by federal law from firearms purchases. States are
supposed to make mental health records available to the federal
background check system and receive more generous Justice Department
grants if they do, but many provide little or no such data because of
privacy concerns or antiquated record-keeping systems.
Coburn got
involved in the background check talks about two weeks ago and says a
compromise could make it harder for dangerous people to acquire
firearms.
"The whole goal is to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill and criminals," he said in a brief interview.
Manchin
could be particularly influential with Democrats like Sens. Mark
Begich, D-Alaska, and Mark Pryor, D-Ark., who face re-election next year
in deeply Republican states. Besides being an NRA member, Manchin ran a
campaign ad in 2010 in which he promised to defend West Virginian's
Second Amendment rights to bear arms and "take on" the Obama
administration — all while shooting a hole in a copy of a Democratic
bill that would have clamped limits on greenhouse gases — another sore
spot for a coal-mining state like West Virginia.
In an interview,
Manchin said that besides hoping for a background check compromise, he
wanted inclusion of a commission that would study "how our culture has
gotten so desensitized toward violence."
Participating senators
declined to provide details of the talks. But people following the
discussions say the talks have touched on:
—The types of family relatives who would be allowed to give guns to each other without a background check.
—Possibly exempting sales in remote areas.
—Whether
to help some veterans who sought treatment for traumatic stress
disorder — now often barred from getting firearms — become eligible to
do so.
An NRA spokesman, Andrew Arulanandam, declined to comment on the senators' discussions.
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