WASHINGTON — Sen. John Cornyn’s effort to find common ground with gun control advocates on background checks ended Wednesday, with the Texas Republican and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., declaring they had hit an impasse.
“Basically, he suggested to me that there wasn’t any real reason to continue talking right now,” Cornyn told CNN.
Cornyn, an NRA-backed gun rights advocate who authored a law to improve the federal database that tracks criminals and others legally barred from gun ownership, had been meeting privately with Murphy for over a month.
In March, the House voted to require background checks on almost all gun purchases, closing loopholes that exclude sales at gun shows and by any unlicensed seller.
That bill has stalled in the Senate.
Cornyn said he’d hoped that he and Murphy could find a compromise that would not go as far as the House version while still beefing up the existing system.
Murphy has been pushing for tougher gun restrictions since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. He said last month that if a bipartisan deal couldn’t be struck by early June, Democrats should move ahead with an expansive bill, making background checks universal on any gun sales.
“I have been very open to compromise and I think Senator Cornyn was negotiating in good faith. But we haven’t been able to get to a bill that would meaningfully increase the number of gun sales that require background checks,” Murphy said in a statement. “The good news is that I’m still talking with other Republican colleagues about different proposals to expand background checks, and I’m committed to getting something done.”
He didn’t specify who he’ll work with now that the effort with Cornyn has failed.
The main point of contention has been a loophole on licences to make, import or sell firearms that has allowed gun buyers to sidestep the background check system by purchasing from unlicensed dealers.
Some of those buyers would fail a background check because of a criminal record, history of domestic violence or court order related to serious mental illness.
The end of the Cornyn-Murphy talks leaves the fate of any new background checks bill unclear.
For Cornyn, it also may relieve pressure from especially ardent Second Amendment advocates who decried his willingness to seek any sort of compromise.
The Gun Owners of America, which has looked down on the National Rifle Association as soft, has sent at least two email blasts this week to would-be donors, accusing Cornyn of “quietly making a deal with the rabid anti-gunner, Chris Murphy, to pass universal background checks.”
“If John Cornyn, who represents the state of TEXAS, is already considering stabbing gun owners in the back, then you know that we’re truly in a DIRE situation,” an email read.
The Second Amendment Foundation chastised Cornyn for expressing openness to expanding the definition of who has to register for a federal license to sell, import or manufacture firearms.
“The Cornyn/Murphy scheme – more dealers will mean more background checks, which will result in less crime – has been tried before,” an article on the group’s website says. “Obama tried to tighten the screws and force more people into getting FFLs in 2016. It didn’t work then. Cornyn and Murphy should know that now.”
Private sellers are not required to conduct a background check on buyers.
“Texans who want to buy a gun will still have the private sale option even if the [Cornyn-Murphy] negotiations hadn’t broken down,” said Gyl Switzer, executive director of the gun violence prevention organization Texas Gun Sense.
Cornyn, elected in 2002, has been involved in numerous efforts to bolster the federal background check system.
He introduced and pushed through the Fix NICS Act in the aftermath of a 2017 massacre at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, when a gunman killed 26 people. The shooter had a history of violence that made him ineligible to legally buy a gun.
But the Air Force had failed to report the red flags to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), the database gun dealers use to vet buyers.
The law is intended to avert such problems in the future by requiring federal agencies to report all disqualifying records of people prohibited from buying or owning a gun.
After the El Paso and Midland-Odessa shootings in 2019, Cornyn introduced the RESPONSE Act (Restoring, Enhancing, Strengthening, and Promoting Our Nation’s Safety Efforts), which he said would help prevent future attacks in part by creating task forces to prosecute unlicensed firearms dealers.
In March, Cornyn was part of a bipartisan group, five senators from each party, that re-introduced the NICS Denial Notification Act, which would require alerts within 24 hours to state and local police when a would-be gun buyer fails a background check.
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