Republicans may reconsider gun-buying ban for suspected terrorists

After learning Omar Mateen legally purchased the semi-automatic rifle and handgun he used to kill 49 people in Orlando early Sunday morning, Senate Democrats hope to revive a bill to bar suspected terrorists from legally buying firearms. But Republican lawmakers have mixed feelings about the legislation.

“Thoughts and prayers are not enough,” said Rep. Bob Dold, R-Ill., in a speech yesterday. Dold voted against the bill in December, but now calls for “commonsense” gun control legislation that doesn’t impede Second Amendment rights.

Democrats remain the most vocal advocates for the legislation, and some blame the near unanimous GOP vote against the bill for the Orlando shooting.

“These attacks are preventable. Mass shootings are the status quo because Congress has voted against sensible gun safety measures—it’s that simple,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told The Washington Post. “Now we are living in the consequences of that vote.”

The original Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act enabled the attorney general to prohibit a potential terrorist from purchasing guns or registering for a weapons license. It also allowed officials to revoke a weapons license or take firearms from a known terrorist. The bill would apply to the more than 420,000 individuals on the FBI’s terror watch list—a list that included Mateen in 2013 and 2014—and more than 16,000 suspected terrorists who are banned from commercial airline flights.

Former President George W. Bush originally proposed the bill’s predecessor in 2007, and Congress has batted around the idea ever since.

Currently, no law bars domestic suspects on the watch and “no fly” lists from purchasing firearms. People on these lists legally purchased 2,265 firearms between 2004 and 2015, according to the Government Accountability Office. Background checks only prevented 9 percent of suspects from buying guns.

“In light of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, I believe we have an obligation to revisit this issue,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the current bill’s sponsor, in a statement today. “We cannot continue to do nothing.”

Since the FBI removed Mateen from the watch list, the bill would not have prohibited him from legally purchasing firearms—unless the solicitor general believed he planned to use firearms in a terrorist act.

Feinstein also called for a ban on AR-15 assault rifles—the weapon used in the Orlando, San Bernardino, Calif., and Aurora, Colo., attacks.

Other Democrats, like Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., are suggesting more stringent tactics for preventing mass shootings. Casey submitted a bill this week that would prohibit those convicted of hate crimes from purchasing guns.

“If you have proven you will commit criminal acts based on hate, you absolutely should not have access to a gun,” he said at a news conference Monday.

After House Democrats interrupted a GOP-initiated moment of silence for the Orlando victims with shouts for action, several Republicans warmed to some gun control legislation but want to avoid inflammatory or “poison pill” amendments. They called on the House Rules Committee to decide what facets of gun control bills are worth debating.

“We’re going to be less narrow and more broad [and] look at the entire issue, not just related to no-fly lists,” committee chairman Rep. Pete Session, R-Texas, told Roll Call. “And I do not consider that a poison pill.”

The almost unanimous GOP vote against the bill in December concluded the watch list was riddled with false suspects—those who have not committed terrorist acts and individuals with the same name as potential terrorists.

Today, other Republicans reiterated their original opposition and argued the bill cannot prevent terrorists from acquiring firearms.

“It has the same structural flaws as it did before,” Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the chief deputy majority whip, told Politico. “The issue is us getting tough on the radicalization of our people and our allowing right now the flow of immigrants into this country without sifting through whether they have any ties to these terrorist organizations.”