WASHINGTON – Republicans are adopting the language of social justice as they dig deeper into universal background checks and other policies designed to limit access to firearms.
As the country processes two deadly mass shootings in consecutive weeks and evaluates with increasing rates of violence against Americans of Asian origin, Republicans are opposing arms control measures based on the protection of the black, Latin and Asian communities.
On Tuesday, Republican Party senators framed gun control as part of a long and racist history of restricting the rights of minority groups during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on armed violence. While they still make traditional arguments that gun laws infringe Second Amendment rights and punish law-abiding gun owners, many of their questions to witnesses have focused on minority communities that need guns to protect themselves.
“Many times, inevitably in American history, but even before American history, we have seen that it is rarely the powerful, very rarely the wealthy or those with political connections to the government, who have their rights interfered with,” said Republican Senator Mike Lee.
Chris Cheng, a witness invited by the Senate Republicans and a sports shooter who won the History Channel show’s fourth season championship Top Shot, linked gun control to a historic pattern of violation of minority rights, which included the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. “We need to defend ourselves,” he said.
Congress is not considering any legislation to withdraw weapons or prevent any group of people from possessing them, although President Joe Biden called on Tuesday to renew the assault weapon ban enacted in 1994, which expired a decade later.
Current legislation in Congress includes two bills recently passed by the House on universal background checks. An account would expand background checks to cover private sales, online sales and arms fair sales. The other would provide authorities with up to 20 days to conduct background checks when someone wants to buy a firearm. Currently, gun sellers can complete their purchase after three days if a background check has not been completed. Research shows that expanded background checks are extremely popular with Democratic and Republican voters.
While Republican gun rhetoric is changing, the underlying policy remains the same. The party is overwhelmingly opposed to any gun control measure, including background checks such as those passed by the House.
“Thoughts and prayers alone are not enough. We need action, ”Senator Ted Cruz said at Tuesday’s hearing, echoing the words generally spoken by Democrats in asking politicians to go beyond mere condolences to shoot the victims.
In fact, Cruz was arguing against measures like universal background checks and a ban on assault rifles, calling it a “ridiculous theater where this committee meets and proposes a lot of laws that would do nothing to prevent this violence”. He was talking about action in his own legislation, a much more limited plan that focuses on increasing funding for law enforcement.
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal accused Cruz of including “poison pills” in his legislation – usually a term for a highly controversial clause that sinks a larger bill, but in this case he makes reference to enforcement clauses so weak that Democrats see them as less than better than nothing. Blumenthal accused Cruz of “using deceptive and deceptive measures as a ploy to avoid common sense and effective measures to prevent armed violence”.
If there was ever any hope that the recent armed violence would bring politicians together, it was quickly dashed on Tuesday. Democrats redoubled their calls for new laws, while Republicans ridiculed Democratic proposals as wrong or unconstitutional.
“I’m not trying to match those two perfectly, but we have a lot of drunk drivers in the United States who kill a lot of people,” said Republican Senator John Kennedy. “We must combat this as well. But I think what a lot of people on my side are saying is that we shouldn’t be rid of all sober drivers. “
Kennedy’s comments quickly spread across Twitter, where many people noticed that the government regulates who can drive a car.
A few days ago, infrastructure, instead of arms control, was the priority item of Congress. But deadly shootings in Atlanta, Georgia, and Boulder, Colorado, switched gun control to the front burner. Biden asked Congress to immediately approve the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as the House’s two background check bills.
But Democrats need at least 10 Republicans to override a Senate veto and pass any gun control measures in law. No Senate Republican has so far spoken in favor of House bills. There is not even unanimous support among Senate Democrats – Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia said he did not support the House’s proposals.
The question now is whether Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer goes ahead with universal background checks and presents legislation that is likely to fail, or whether he works with Republicans to create a more diluted deal that could stand a chance of being okay.