The Washington Post - 07.08.2019

A8 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7 , 2019

(D), whose South Florida district includes the Parkland school where 17 students and staff members were killed last year, said in a telephone interview Sunday. “ There’s only so much of that that you can read about and watch without just throwing up your hands.” Deutch wants House Democrats to come back into session and push more aggressive legislation, such as a renewed ban on assault weapons and limits on the number of bullets in gun magazines. After all, only one mass shooting this decade is known to have come after a background check failed to deny a gun purchase to someone who should have been blocked — ending in 26 dead in 2017 at a Te xas church. Almost every mass shooting involves weapons that allow for high-capacity magazines. “They’re what these mass killers rely on,” Deutch said. Democratic leaders have resisted those calls and instead want to continue applying pressure on McConnell and Republicans. And a vote on the House bill, even if it failed, would at least force the hand of several first-term Republicans who have never cast votes on serious gun laws. Until such pressure sways McConnell and GOP senators, gun-safety supporters are bracing for an all-too-familiar outcome. “I don’t know exactly whether we will get a different outcome this time,” Toomey said. “I certainly hope we do.” [email protected]

police to block people from keeping guns if courts deem them a risk to themselves or others. The last real gun debate came in early 2013 — after the Sandy Hook shooting, in which 20 students and six school employees were killed — and ended in a filibuster deadlock. The Manchin-Toomey proposal fell five votes short of the 60 needed to defeat a filibuster: Four Republicans broke ranks to support the compromise background-check bill, while four conservative Democrats opposed it. In the ensuing three elections, the Democratic caucus’s ranks dropped from 54 to 47 senators. The new Republicans, such as Sens. To m Cotton (Ark.) and Josh Hawley (Mo.), hail from the traditional conservative, pro-gun wing of the GOP. To omey is well aware of the conservative lean of his newer colleagues and wants time to explain his 2013 proposal, something that he said previously was “reasonably well understood by many of my colleagues.” “So if you want a successful outcome, which is what I want, then I think you work towards developing the coalition and the consensus so that you actually get the right outcome,” he said. This go-slow mantra leaves gun-safety advocates spinning their wheels, fearing that another set of mass shootings will pass without any major legislation getting signed into law. “Should we be doing more? Absolutely, yes,” Rep. Te d Deutch

“strong background checks,” and then, a little more than three hours later, he delivered a White House address that did not mention background checks and invoked the sort of language that NRA supporters have long used. “Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger. Not the gun,” Trump said. That shifts Republicans’ focus toward more modest “red flag” proposals, designed to provide federal grants to encourage more states to adopt laws that allow

The biggest wild card, as always, is Trump. He commands such a devout following among Republican voters that if he were to rally behind a background-check bill, that might prompt enough GOP senators to shy away from their long-standing support of positions laid out by the National Rifle Association. But Trump’s public comments have veered back and forth. On Monday morning, just before 7 a.m., he expressed support for

Kinzinger (Ill.) — has professed new support for the House background-check bill. Other Republicans, including Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) and Mike Braun (Ind.), have expressed support for some type of universal background checks, but not the House bill in its current form. That leaves every existing background-check bill short of a simple majority in the Senate — and all are well short of the likely 60-vote threshold they would have to crest to get such a bill to President Trump’s desk. With that whip count in mind, To omey declined to join calls for the Senate to abandon its recess and return to Washington for an emergency gun-control session. “This isn’t going to happen tomorrow,” he told reporters Monday in a conference call, “and if we force a vote tomorrow, then I think the vote probably fails, and we may actually set back this whole effort.” To omey wants to mount a slow and steady political pressure campaign to win over enough support from the 22 Republican senators who have never voted on his gun bill. Democrats want the opposite, demanding that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) call the Senate back from its five- week-plus break to hold an immediate vote on the House bill. “Gavel the Senate to an emergency session so we can take immediate action on the bipartisan, already passed gun legislation,” Schumer told reporters on Long Island on Tuesday.

Supporters of
universal
background
checks for gun
purchases face a
daunting reality in their demand
for a snap Senate roll call: They
don’t have the votes; not even
close.
Just two Republican senators
— Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.) and
Susan Collins (Maine) — are on
record in support of expanding
background-check laws,
specifically through a bill
To omey drafted with Sen. Joe
Manchin III (D-W.Va.).
That bill, written after the
December 2012 Sandy Hook
Elementary School shooting in
Newtown, Conn., contained
several concessions designed to
win support from Senate
Republicans, such as allowing
interstate sales of handguns
among gun dealers.
Now, quite a few Senate
Democrats view the Manchin-
To omey bill as insufficient to
deal with the mass violence that
has grown worse since that failed
2013 effort. They are demanding
a vote on the House version of
the legislation, approved in
February, which drops those
concessions to conservatives.
But even if Senate Minority
Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-
N.Y.) could corral all 47 members
of the Democratic caucus for the
House bill, GOP support might
be nonexistent.
To omey and Collins have
reiterated their backing for the
2013 Senate bill but not the
House legislation. And after the
recent mass shootings in
California, Te xas and Ohio, just
one Republican — Rep. Adam

mass shootings in america

Proponents of stricter gun-control laws face a reality check in the Senate

@PKCapitol

PAUL KANE

JACQUELYN MARTIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) is the only Republican to express new support for a House background-check bill after recent shootings.

BY SEAN SULLIVAN

The Democratic presidential candidates are increasingly speaking of gun violence in highly personal terms, recounting how shootings have stolen their own relatives and friends and providing an emotional underpinning to new gun-control proposals that would have been unthink- able just a few years ago. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock has been talking about how his 11-year-old nephew was shot by a 10-year-old schoolmate. Former Colorado governor John Hicken- looper has recalled personally dealing with a massacre that killed 12 in a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. Former congress- man Beto O’Rourke, who carries a photo of a shooting victim in his wallet, unleashed an expletive- laced response to a question about President Trump’s respon- sibility for the tragedy in El Paso, his hometown. The emotional language makes the stark shift in the Democrats’ message over the past half-dozen years on gun control — an issue that bitterly divides the nation, socially and culturally — all the more striking. “Since 2008 or 2004, we’ve continued to have, both in inten- sity and quantity, more and more of these horrific shootings that capture the mind’s e ye and public attention,” s aid Bullock, who runs a rural state with a strong hunt- ing tradition. “My family hasn’t been immune from that.” From former vice president Joe Biden’s references to his son’s death (though not from gun violence) as he called for a buyback of assault weapons, to Sen. Cory Booker’s p lanned speech Wednes- day at a South Carolina church where nine people were killed by a white supremacist in 2015, the Democrats have turned the issue into a poignant rallying cry. That shift has come into sharp focus after the shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, which left a total of 31 dead and many injured. Democratic officials hope that embracing gun control will resonate in suburban swing areas, enabling them to build on gains they made in the midterms. But there is political peril as well: Trump and his allies are eager to stoke culture wars over guns and other polarizing issues that they hope will animate the conservative base. Bullock plans to deliver a speech in Washington on Wednesday about gun violence and the state of the Democratic Party. The governor, who favors expanding background checks on gun buyers, said he plans to share

his perspective as a gun owner. Other candidates are focusing on guns this week in their own ways. Biden, who is leading in polls, said in an interview broad- cast Monday that as president, he would implement a national buyback program to reduce the number of assault weapons in circula- tion. CNN’s A nderson Cooper asked, “So to gun owners out there who say, ‘Well, a Biden administration means they’re going to come for my guns’?” Biden didn’t hesitate. “Bingo, you’re right,” he said, “if you have an assault weapon.” As Barack Obama’s running mate in 2008, Biden sounded far more defensive about the notion that Democrats would come after people’s guns. “I guarantee you Barack Obama ain’t taking my shotguns, so don’t b uy that malar- key,” he said at the time. What has changed, Democrats say, is the number of mass shootings, often in places like schools or houses of worship, meaning more people have been personally affected. So it only makes sense for candidates to open up about their own feelings and experi- ences and embrace tighter re- strictions, Democrats say. “We all feel we know someone who has endured tragedy as a result of gun violence,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), whose state was shaken by the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook El- ementary School, which killed 20 young children and six school staffers. “Gun violence, it’s like cancer, that people feel touches and affects them personally in their own lives.” The El Paso shooting’s emotional toll on O’Rourke, who rep- resented the city in Congress, was evident in the hours and days that followed. He w as visibly shaken at a news conference in Nevada on Saturday before heading back to Te xas. “It is very hard to think about this,” he said, before lower- ing his head in silence. The next day, O’Rourke had an unusually raw response to a question from a reporter who asked

him what Trump could do to make things better. “What do you think?” the candidate responded in exasperation, before unleash- ing several vulgarities. That anger with Trump on the part of many Democrats has in- fused the gun debate with more animosity and frustration than in the past. The alleged shooter in El Paso is thought to have posted an anti-immigrant screed online, portions of which mirrored Trump’s rhetoric. There is some evidence of a political shift underway, with the public placing more trust in Dem- ocrats than Republicans on guns. A national survey of midterm voters last year by the Associated Press and Fox News found 8 percent saying “gun policy” was the most important of nine issues facing the country, a nd this group favored Democratic House candidates 81 percent to 17 percent. Similarly, the national network exit poll found 10 percent of voters picking gun policy as the most important of four issues offered, with 70 percent of this group favoring Democrats and 29 percent backing Republicans. What’s clear is that Democratic candidates are touting gun policies that would have been seen as outside the mainstream in past campaigns. Booker (N.J.), for ex- ample, released a proposal earlier this year to create a federal gun-li- censing program. “The pendulum has swung,” said Joe Trippi, a veteran Demo- cratic strategist who recalled “very little” t alk about guns in the 2004 presidential race, when he managed Howard Dean’s campaign. Booker plans to focus on gun violence and white nationalism

in his speech Wednesday at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. The address comes a little more than four years after Obama delivered a eulogy in Charleston after the deadly shooting there. South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg released a proposal Tuesday to expand background checks and ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, positions the Democratic field has largely embraced. Like the others, he has sought to draw a personal, if somewhat indirect, connection to mass shootings. “I was a [high school] junior when the Columbine shooting happened. I was part of the first generation that saw routine school shootings,” Buttigieg said at last week’s debate. “We have now produced the second school shooting generation in this country. We’d better not allow there to be a third.” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who was accused by Hillary Clin- ton in 2016 of not being tough enough on guns, called for a moment of silence at a Sunday campaign event to mark the mass shooting in Dayton. A day earlier, he did the same thing after the shooting in El Paso. “It never occurred to me that one day later we would have to do that again,” said Sanders. He bowed his head in silence, before advocating a ban on the sale and distribution of assault weapons and an expansion of background checks. “Big picture, the fact that all of the candidates are competing to see who can be the best on this issue is absolutely a sea change in American politics,” s aid Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. The group helped arrange a gun safety forum in Iowa this Satur- day that six candidates have so far committed to attending. Ye t some of the candidates have been less specific on guns. O’Rourke has embraced many of the same ideas as his opponents but has not posted them on his website. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), who has released several detailed policy proposals, has not yet issued one on guns. She plans to release such a plan before attending Saturday’s forum, a campaign spokeswoman said. So far, there is little evidence that the heightened rhetoric is leading to new policies, given the standoff between the GOP-con- trolled Senate and the Democrat- ic-led House. “I have no confidence about the Senate on any particular issue,” said Blumenthal. “What I know for certain is gun violence preven- tion will be on the ballot in 2020.” [email protected]

Jenna Johnson in El Paso and Scott Clement and Annie Linskey in Washington contributed to this report.

Fr om Democratic candidates, emotional reactions

BY GREG BENSINGER

Google and Amazon, two of the
biggest p latforms for online shop-
ping, have been offering for sale
and profiting from listings of fire-
arm and gun accessories, an ap-
parent violation of their own stat-
ed policies that shows the pitfalls
of software-driven retail.
The companies as recently as
Monday, w ithin d ays of three m ass
shootings that have shaken the
nation, were offering rifle maga-
zines for s ale on their sites, includ-
ing models with a capacity t o hold
25 or more bullets.
On its Shopping site, which of-
fers an array of retail goods from
vendors across the Web, Google
had listings for boxes of shotgun
rounds such as the $31.25 20-
round Hornady Critical Defense
set, described on the manufactur-
er’s website as able to “place all
projectiles on a man-sized target
at seven yards” and “provide ex-
cellent penetration.”
Google bans the promotion of
products that “cause damage,
harm o r injury,” s o the l istings that
direct users to retail sites are not
allowed and should have been de-
tected by the company’s software
and removed. For instance, a
search for “bump stock,” which
Google banned after t he device for
rapid firing was used in the 20 17
Las Vegas massacre, produces no
results.
Amazon’s online policy lists
dozens of b anned w ares related to
gun use. But on Monday the r etail-
er was offering ammunition clips
such a s the B utler C reek 25-round
magazine, an attachment for r ifles
used to store multiple bullets.
Amazon says it ships the $45.
item to customers itself, suggest-
ing that it stores the product in
one of its warehouses.
“The sale of weapons, guns and
certain gun parts is strictly pro-
hibited o n Google Shopping,” s aid
Google spokeswoman Caroline
Klapper-Matos. “A s soon as we
found policy-violating results, we
removed t hem and a re working to
prevent these instances from re-
occurring.”
“A ll sellers are required to fol-
low our selling guidelines and
those who do not will b e subject t o
action, including potential re-
moval of their account,” s aid Ama-
zon spokeswoman Cecilia Fan.
(Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos owns
The Washington Post.)
After being contacted by The
Post, Google eliminated some of
the listings, such as the Hornady
rounds and a box of Remington
hollow point rounds, which could
be found by searching f or “ammu-

nition” on the Shopping site and clicking an option for “Buy with Google.” It also eliminated some results The Post found for “rifle magazine” and “ammunition belt.” Amazon on Tuesday pulled down listings for s ome rifle magazines identified after being noti- fied Monday. The availability of the goods speaks to the limitations of the company’s algorithms to keep even prohibited items from mak- ing their way to the websites. Al- gorithms play a huge role in polic- ing the Internet, by automatically weeding out prohibited language, images and the like. Te chnology companies constantly update the software, often in response to new internal policies or societal change. There is renewed scrutiny over firearm sales after gunmen killed more than 30 people and injured dozens more in a one- week stretch in three different U.S. cities. Some Democratic presidential candidates renewed calls for tighter controls on sales of military-style weapons, and protesters flocked to the National Rifle Association headquarters to demand stronger gun laws.

Google’s l ist of p rohibited products includes ammunition as well as firearms, scopes, ammunition belts and guides for 3-D printing of guns, according to a policy it published online. But The Post found examples of each on the Shopping site, including goods that could be purchased directly through Google, rather than by being routed to the merchant’s website first. Some tech companies are ac- tively seeking to rein in gun sales, such as software provider Sales- force, which has indicated to some retailers that it will s top providing its services if they don’t halt the sale of military-style rifles, The Post r eported in May. Google earlier Monday eliminated a 100-round magazine s imi- lar to that used by the gunman in Dayton, Ohio, that allowed him to kill nine people in just 30 seconds before police struck him down. Google took action on that item after Twitter user Pinboard noted the listing Monday afternoon. [email protected]

 More at washingtonpost.com/ technology

Gun accessories for sale

on Google, Amazon sites

ANDRES LEIGHTON/ASSOCIATED PRESS Beto O’Rourke speaks with reporters Sunday outside the El Paso Walmart where a mass shooting took place the day before.

In a shift, presidential hopefuls talk about gun

Availability despite firms’ policy in personal terms

policies shows the pitfalls

of software-driven retail

“The sale of weapons,

guns and certain

gun parts is strictly

prohibited on Google

Shopping.” Caroline Klapper-Matos , company spokeswoman

“If we force a vote tomorrow,

then I think the vote probably fails, and

we may actually set back this whole effort.” Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.), co-author of a background-check bill

“It is very hard to think

about this.” Beto O’Rourke, Democratic presidential candidate, reacting Saturday to news of the shooting in his hometown, El Paso

The Washington Post - 07.08.2019

Get our desktop app

Company

Features

Documentation

Resources