Gun bill could face showdown in Senate

Trish Choate
For the Times Record News

U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry said a gun bill he backs makes a concealed-carry permit legal across state lines in much the same way a driver’s license is.

In this file photo, U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry answered media question shortly before speaking to the Rotary Club of Wichita Falls. Thornberry said a gun bill he backs makes a concealed-carry permit legal across state lines in much the same way a driver’s license is.

Already approved in the House, the legislation faces a battle in the Senate.

Thornberry, Wichita Falls’ congressman, expects Senate backers will have to offer it differently than House supporters did to get it on the president's desk. 

“Hopefully, they’ll be able to take it and run with it,” the Republican from Clarendon said.

Thornberry is a cosponsor, and the National Rifle Association embraced the House bill.

Gun-rights supporters and gun-control advocates are geared up for the fight.

The measure is the National Rifle Association’s top priority, Amy Hunter, spokeswoman for NRA’s legislative arm, said.

“We are committed to making sure this measure – the most expansive self-defense legislation before Congress in 30 years – ends up on the president’s desk and signed into law,” Hunter said in a statement.

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence is on the other side of the battle lines.

Fewer members of Congress supported the gun bill in the House vote this month than similar legislation in 2013, Ruth Glenn, NCADV executive director, said in a statement.

The margin of passage shrank from 118 to 33.

“Much of the credit for that drop goes to our grassroots advocates," Glenn said. “With similar engagement from our advocates across the nation, we hope we will be able to defeat concealed carry in the Senate."

NCADV and other gun-control advocates opposed it as loosening laws on the heels of recent mass shootings in Texas and Las Vegas -- and just before the fifth anniversary of Sandy Hook. The legislation drew opposition even though it tightens up reporting to an FBI background-check database.

Its most controversial provisions allow reciprocity for concealed-carry permits in states already offering them. The provisions free permit holders from the legal consequences of crossing state lines.

Thornberry’s reaction to gun-control advocates’ complaints: “This bill is primarily about respecting the laws of other states. It’s about tightening up and enforcing the laws that we have, which have not been enforced the way they should.”

The House approved the measure 231-198, generally along party lines. The vote came six days before the fifth anniversary of the Newton, Conn., school shooting. On that day, 20 children and six adults suffered fatal gunshot wounds at the hands of Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary. Lanza then turned a weapon on himself.

The Democrat representing the district including Sandy Hook called the bill an “outrage and an insult to families in Newton, Conn.”

The legislation makes “it easier for domestic abusers, stalkers, and violent criminals to carry loaded, hidden weapons across state lines,” U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty said on the House floor before the vote.

On Oct. 1, gunman Stephen Paddock, 64, killed 58 people during a music festival in Las Vegas before killing himself.

Near San Antonio, Devin Kelly, 26, fatally shot 25 people at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs less than a month before the gun bill passed.  

An Air Force conviction for domestic violence should have kept weapons out of Kelly’s hands. The Air Force, though, didn’t report the conviction to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The database contains information on people barred from buying firearms.

The Air Force launched a review after the discovery Kelly’s name wasn’t in NICS.

“It came to light because of the military, but the truth is lots of state and local governments are not reporting into this database,” Thornberry, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said.

The measure ensures the military, as well as state and local governments, report to NICS, he said.

Some lawmakers complained about concealed-carry reciprocity and the NICS provision being sandwiched together into a single bill. They wanted to vote on them separately to avoid being caught in what they felt was a conflicting stance.

“Every day we vote on legislation that includes different pieces,” Thornberry said. “Obviously these are around the same topic it seems to me.”

He said members of Congress must weigh their convictions and vote accordingly.

The legislation might need to ride on the coattails of another measure.

“I think that there’s going to have to be some senators that try to get this attached to something,” Thornberry said. “I don’t know if they’ll be able to bring it up on its own.”

Senators might get the chance to vote on concealed-carry reciprocity and the NICS provision separately.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas has introduced the two provisions as separate legislation in the Senate. They were reported to the Senate Judicial Committee.

After the passage of the House bill, Cornyn expressed disapproval of the combining of the two measures, according to the Associated Press.

Cornyn’s “Fix NICS” legislation has bipartisan support. NCADV is listed as one of the bill’s supporters on Cornyn’s Senate website.

Republicans have a majority of 52 but will need 60 votes for approval. The Republican majority will narrow to 51-49 when Alabama Democrat Doug Jones takes a Senate seat.