After last weekend’s horrible mass shootings, we’re hearing the usual cries from the left for stricter gun control — but this time we’re also hearing them from increasing numbers of Republican lawmakers willing to embrace “red flag” legislation.
Time reports that a bipartisan proposal to create a federal grant encouraging the adoption of state-level red flag laws is “gaining momentum” in the Senate. President Trump gave the bill a push on Monday, telling the nation in a prepared address, “We must make sure that those judged to pose a grave risk to public safety do not have access to firearms and that if they do those firearms can be taken through rapid due process.” GOP co-sponsor Lindsey Graham (South Carolina) said that red flag laws will allow law enforcement to “do something” about potentially dangerous gun owners or would-be buyers.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made the Senate the place where Democrat gun control bills from the House go to die, but even he seems at least somewhat open to new legislation. In a statement released earlier this week, McConnell said that “serious, bipartisan, bicameral efforts will enable us to continue this important work.”
In Wisconsin, Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and GOP Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald are prepared to meet next week with Democratic Governor Tony Evers to discuss new legislation to do something about “people perceived as threats,” as the AP reported it. Although Vos did go on Twitter to promise that he “will not entertain proposals to take away Second Amendment rights or due process.”
We’ll see.
Illinois GOP congressman and Iraq War vet Adam Kinzinger wrote on Medium this week that he will support red-flag legislation, raising the age limit for firearms purchases to 21, and “banning certain high capacity magazines, like the 100-round drum the Dayton shooter used this weekend.”
Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania is working with West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin on new legislation that he claims will “keep guns out of the hands of criminals, the dangerously mentally ill, and terrorists, while respecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners and all Americans.” He added that he hopes “the accumulated pain from so many of these horrific experiences will be motivation to do something.”
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