Senate set for showdown vote as some Republicans may defy conservative efforts to prevent debate on firearms ban
The US Senate's leading Democrat has set the first showdown vote in Congress on President Barack Obama's gun control drive for Thursday as a small but mounting number of Republicans appear willing to defy conservative efforts to prevent debate from even beginning.
The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, criticised Republicans on Tuesday for trying to prevent a gun control debate. Conservatives say they will use procedural tactics to prevent the Senate from even debating firearms restrictions, meaning 60 out of 100 senators will need to vote for allowing a debate – though several Republicans are coming out against the obstruction attempt.
The Senate machinations follow Obama's remarks in Connecticut on Monday night on gun control, an issue catapulted into the national arena by the killing in December of 20 children and six teachers at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.
Obama's proposals – headlined by background checks for more gun-buyers and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines – have run into stiff opposition from the powerful gun lobby the National Rifle Association and are struggling in Congress. A federal ban on assault weapons has gone nowhere, though some states are imposing their own restrictions.
Participants from both parties said a bipartisan deal was imminent on expanding required federal background checks to gun purchases conducted at gun shows and online. The two chief negotiators, the Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and the Pennsylvania Republican senator Patrick Toomey, are expected to announce the compromise on Wednesday.
Such a compromise would be likely to attract bipartisan support because both lawmakers are among their parties' most conservative members.
Currently background checks are required only for sales through licensed gun dealers. The checks, aimed at keeping firearms from criminals, remain the cornerstone of Obama's gun plan. Democrats have been buoyed by polls consistently showing more than eight in 10 Americans support subjecting more buyers to background checks.
Obama was calling senators from both parties on Tuesday to push for the gun bill, according to a White House official.
There are 53 Democrats and two Democratic-leaning independents in the Senate, though it remains unclear whether any moderate Democrats from Republican-leaning states might support the conservative effort. In a hopeful sign for Democrats at least five Republican senators have indicated a willingness to oppose the conservatives' attempt to block debate with stalling tactics.
"The American people ought to see where everybody stands on this," said the senator Tom Coburn, a Republican who said he wanted the debate to proceed.
Reid stood on the Senate floor on Tuesday before a poster-sized photo of a white picket fence with 26 slats, each bearing the name of one of the victims of the Newtown massacre. "We have a responsibility to safeguard these little kids," he said. "And unless we do something more than what's the law today, we have failed."
Relatives of victims of the shootings have mounted a face-to-face lobbying effort in hopes of turning around enough US lawmakers to gain a Senate floor vote on meaningful gun restrictions.
Obama urged Americans to demand action from Washington not to forget the tragedy of Newtown. "If you want the people you send to Washington to have just an iota of the courage that the educators at Sandy Hook showed when danger arrived on their doorstep, then we're all going to have to stand up," he said.
via The Guardian World News http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/10/gun-control-compromise
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment