By ALAN FRAM
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- A bipartisan quartet of senators, including two National Rifle
Association members and two with "F" ratings from the potent firearms
lobby, are quietly trying to find a compromise on expanding the
requirement for gun-sale background checks.
A
deal, given a good chance by several participants and lobbyists, could
add formidable political momentum to one of the key elements of
President Barack Obama's gun control plan. Currently, background checks
are required only for sales by the nation's 55,000 federally licensed
gun dealers, but not for gun show, person-to-person sales or other
private transactions.
The senators' talks have
included discussions about ways to encourage states to make more mental
health records available to the national system and the types of
transactions that might be exempted from background checks, such as
sales among relatives or to those who have permits to carry concealed
weapons, said people who spoke anonymously because they were not
authorized to describe the negotiations publicly.
The
private discussions involve liberal Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who
is the No. 3 Senate Democratic leader; West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin,
an NRA member and one of the chamber's more moderate Democrats; Sen. Tom
Coburn, R-Okla., another NRA member and one of the more conservative
lawmakers in Congress; and moderate GOP Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois.
"It
will not limit your ability to borrow your Uncle Willie's hunting rifle
or share a gun with your friend at a shooting range," Schumer said last
week in one of the senators' few public remarks about the package the
group is seeking. He said he believed a bipartisan deal could be
reached.
Polls show that requiring background
checks for nearly all gun purchases has more public support than Obama's
proposals to ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition
magazines, and it is among those given the best chance of enactment.
Even so, it is opposed by the NRA and many congressional Republicans,
who consider it intrusive and unworkable for a system they say already
has flaws.
"My problem with background checks
is you're never going to get criminals to go through background checks,"
Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president, told the Senate Judiciary
Committee at its gun control hearing last week.
An
agreement among the four senators could help overcome that opposition
by opening the door to support from other conservative Republicans
besides Coburn. It also could make it easier to win backing from
Democratic senators from GOP-leaning states, many of whom face
re-election next year and who have been leery of embracing Obama's
proposals.
Schumer and Kirk each have "F" scores from the NRA, while Coburn and Manchin have "A" ratings.
Prompted
by the December massacre of 20 first-graders and six adults in Newtown,
Conn., the Democratic-led Judiciary Committee plans to write gun
control legislation in the next few weeks. The committee's chairman,
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has expressed strong support for universal
background checks and it is expected to be a cornerstone of his bill,
but a version of that language with bipartisan support could give the
entire package a boost.
"If the language is
meaningful, it would be obviously a huge step," said Josh Horwitz,
executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, which
represents child welfare, religious and other groups favoring gun curbs.
"To have someone like Coburn, who's voted consistently with the gun
lobby, to come out and endorse a meaningful background check would be
very helpful."
It is likely that any
gun-control bill will need 60 votes to pass the 100-member Senate.
Democrats have 55 votes, including two Democratic-leaning independents.
Leaders
of the GOP-run House are planning to see what, if anything, the Senate
passes before moving on gun legislation. Strategists believe that a
measure that passes the Senate with clear bipartisan support could
pressure the House to act.
Federal data on gun purchases is gathered by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which is run by the FBI.
According
to Justice Department estimates, the federal and state governments ran
108 million background checks of firearms sales between 1994 when the
requirement became law and 2009. Of those, 1.9 million - almost 2
percent - were denied, usually because would-be purchasers had criminal
records.
People legally judged to be "mentally
defective" are among those blocked by federal law from firearms
purchases. States are supposed to make mental health records available
to the federal background check system and receive more generous Justice
Department grants if they do, but many provide little or no such data
because of privacy concerns or antiquated record-keeping systems.
Coburn
got involved in the background check talks about two weeks ago and says
a compromise could make it harder for dangerous people to acquire
firearms.
"The whole goal is to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill and criminals," he said in a brief interview.
Manchin
could be particularly influential with Democrats like Sens. Mark
Begich, D-Alaska, and Mark Pryor, D-Ark., who face re-election next year
in deeply Republican states. Besides being an NRA member, Manchin ran a
campaign ad in 2010 in which he promised to defend West Virginian's
Second Amendment rights to bear arms and "take on" the Obama
administration - all while shooting a hole in a copy of a Democratic
bill that would have clamped limits on greenhouse gases - another sore
spot for a coal-mining state like West Virginia.
In
an interview, Manchin said that besides hoping for a background check
compromise, he wanted inclusion of a commission that would study "how
our culture has gotten so desensitized toward violence."
Participating
senators declined to provide details of the talks. But people following
the discussions say the talks have touched on:
-The types of family relatives who would be allowed to give guns to each other without a background check.
-Possibly exempting sales in remote areas.
-Whether
to help some veterans who sought treatment for traumatic stress
disorder - now often barred from getting firearms - become eligible to
do so.
An NRA spokesman, Andrew Arulanandam, declined to comment on the senators' discussions.
© 2013 The Associated Press modified.
