As negotiations in Congress over gun reform legislation continue, there are two things we can say about Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the Republican tapped by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to represent his party in talks with Senate Democrats.
First, Cornyn is trying. And that’s something. It’d be “embarrassing,” Cornyn told Politico last week, if the Senate can’t pass something in the wake of the murder of 19 fourth graders and their two teachers in Uvalde, Texas last month. “It would feed the narrative that we can’t get things done in the public interest,” he said. “I don’t believe that narrative.”
The second thing to know, however, is that he’s not trying hard enough. And that’s unacceptable.
How he’s trying
Working with Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, whose been calling for gun legislation since the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, Texas’ senior senator is seeking to add funding for mental health resources and school safety. He also supports modest changes to gun laws that could help, such as requiring certain juvenile records be uploaded into the national firearms-purchasing background database. When an 18- to 21-year-old attempts to purchase a firearm, and his records contain troubling information, the sale would be subjected to a waiting period and further investigation. Cornyn also wants federal funding for any state that implements a red flag law.
A spokesman for Cornyn told us Thursday he’s also seeking to close the “boyfriend loophole,” a reform House Democrats approved in 2019 amid strong support from voices such as former Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo. Federal law forbids anyone convicted of violence against a family member from buying a firearm, but does not apply to individuals who have attacked dating partners.
Cornyn also wants a crack down on unlicensed firearms dealers masquerading as hobbyists, the kind that sold the shooter in the 2019 Odessa mass shooting his weapon.
These steps are worthy of praise. Perhaps under ordinary circumstances, they’d even be sufficient. But we’re not living in ordinary times.
No ordinary times
In just the past month, mass shootings have robbed innocents of life, of their very future, in Buffalo, Uvalde, Tulsa and in more than 20 other cities. Members of Congress heard directly from survivors on Wednesday. Testimony included the tear-filled stories of a fourth grader forced to cover herself in blood to pretend she was dead, of a pediatrician who bore witness to the way a bullet fired from an AR-15 ravages a small body, of grieving parents pleading for changes in gun laws.
Similar testimony has been heard countless times before.
The horrific, heartrending stories shared after El Paso, Santa Fe and Sutherland Springs, and after Orlando, Parkland, Pittsburgh, and so many others, all testify to the fact that we have an exceptional problem in this nation that requires exceptional efforts to resolve. Mere trying isn’t enough.
“We are not talking about restricting the rights of current, law-abiding gun owners or citizens,” Cornyn said in a Senate speech this week. “What I’m interested in is keeping guns out of the hands of those who, by current law, are not supposed to have them. People with mental health problems, people who have criminal records. Again, this is about the art of the possible.”
We believe in the art of the possible
As an editorial board, we believe in focusing on the art of the possible. We’re on record supporting an incremental approach to gun reform, even in the wake of Uvalde. We recognize, for instance, that there are not enough votes in the Senate to heed President Biden’s call to reinstate the federal ban on assault weapons. Is the ban on new sales of such rifles the right thing to do? Of course it is.
But we did not expect Cornyn to don a white hat and ride to the rescue of a nation in the throes of an epidemic of mass shootings.
We do expect him to push his party past its comfort zone, toward sensible reforms that will at least set us on a path to closing loopholes, addressing glaring vulnerabilities and tempering an absolutist gun culture that’s made deadly weapons and wartime killing machines dangerously accessible in this nation.
“The art of the possible” looks like a sham when “possible” is defined as what the NRA-beholden GOP is willing to accept. As Andy Warhol said, art is what you can get away with.
Cornyn can get away with much more. Because the majority of Americans, even voters and donors within his own party, want much more.
When even reforms passed in conservative states — such as mandatory red-flag laws and higher age limits for assault rifles — are ruled non-starters, then the quest has stopped being about possibility and all about political convenience.
Expanding already-required background checks to include sales through private parties isn’t even worth talking about? A national red flag law allowing a judge to temporarily seize weapons of an owner deemed to pose a threat to himself or others is a step too far?
Even if a renewed ban on assault rifles is out of reach, how in the world did raising the age to buy one to 21 — to match federal handgun regulations — become something Congress can’t even discuss?
An aide to Cornyn stressed that the senator is dealing with “what can pass in a 50-50 Senate. He knows that better than just about anyone.”
That’s probably true. But this moment requires more of Cornyn, to push his colleagues to genuine action. When normal means endless shootings and nonstop tears, we need a new standard.
The bittersweet irony of John Cornyn is that he seems to know all this.
“If you’re not in the Senate in order to make a difference and make tough, politically challenging decisions which you know are the right thing to do, then you need to find another job,” he said this week.
We couldn’t have said it better. Of course, knowing is the easy part. Leadership is something else.
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism