Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said that there are some ‘glimmers of hope’ on getting stricter gun laws passed, but Republicans would have to feel politically vulnerable.
‘I think Republicans will act if they are faced with mass losses in these elections,’ Blumenthal said Thursday morning on CNN. ‘And an answer to your question, what can be done? In a word: elections.’
Blumenthal made his comments on the heels of the second deadliest shooting at a U.S. public school – in Parkland, Florida – with the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in the senator’s home state, resulting in the most casualties.
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, whose home state of Connecticut was deeply impacted by the Sandy Hook shooting, said Thursday that Republicans would be motivated to support gun control if they knew it would cost them big in the next election
Sen. Blumenthal (right) also told CNN’s Chris Cuomo (left) that he saw ‘glimmers’ of hope when it came to gun control measures getting passed, including three successful ballot initiatives in 2016, and Republican Sen. John Cornyn’s willingness to do something on background checks
The Connecticut senator argued that the political momentum in the country was toward gun restrictions, instead of gun rights, pointing to a number of successful ballot initiatives in the 2016 cycle.
‘In the last election where states had gun violence prevention measures on their ballots, three out of four succeeded in referendum and many candidates with this issue succeeded in elections last time around,’ Blumenthal argued.
What the Democrat failed to mention is that two of the three initiatives passed in left-leaning states – California and Washington – while another squeaked by in Nevada, which has been trending blue.
A fourth measure, to expand background checks in the more moderate state of Maine, died at the ballot box.
At the federal level, Blumenthal touted Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas’ involvement in bipartisan legislation to strengthen federal background checks as progress.
Cornyn introduced the legislation, which was co-sponsored by Blumenthal, in the aftermath of the Sutherland Springs church shooting in Texas last November.
Blumenthal called it only a ‘glimmer’ of hope because Cornyn’s bill didn’t do much to expand the background check system, but instead pushed federal agencies and states to draft plans on how to better report background information to NICS, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, according to the Texas Tribune.
Congress also never delivered on talk that the body might ban bump stocks in the aftermath of the deadliest shooting in modern history, when a gunman killed 58 from his hotel room window raining bullets onto an outdoor concert venue in Las Vegas last October.
For several weeks after the rampage, Republicans seemed amenable to a bump stock ban, with the National Rifle Association expressing support, but momentum for the bill, introduced by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, soon petered out.
That’s because, as CNN’s Harry Enten pointed out, public opinion in favor of gun control tends to spike right after mass shootings, but then returns to the more long-term trend of Americans favoring access to guns over restrictions.
Currently, Enten noted, Americans support the Republican stance on guns – by one point – over the Democratic position.
And while Blumenthal urged that restricting gun ownership become a ‘groundswell, grassroots issue,’ Republicans know that won’t play well with their base.
There’s a 59 per cent partisan gap on the issue, with 79 per cent of Republicans supporting Second Amendment rights, compared to just 20 per cent of Democrats.