2/26/2018

2A/GUNS/POLITICS: “Legislation designed to improve background checks for gun purchases ran into new hurdles Monday [2-26-18], raising doubts about lawmakers’ ability to act in the wake of the Florida school shooting.
The background-checks bill, sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas), would encourage states and federal agencies, including the military, to submit criminal-conviction records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS. That step has broad bipartisan support.
But some Democrats worried Monday that GOP lawmakers would seek to address the recent public outcry over gun violence by passing the Cornyn bill but no other gun-control legislation, and suggested they might withhold support. On the other side, some Republicans voiced concerns over how people flagged in the strengthened system could appeal… Mr. Cornyn told reporters that he still saw his bill as the most likely common ground on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have struggled for years to pass any significant legislation connected to guns… Federal law requires agencies to submit to the background-check system records relevant to whether someone should be allowed to buy a firearm, such as criminal convictions. But at the state level, compliance is voluntary unless mandated by state law or federal funding requirements.
Democrats don’t object to the legislation itself, but said on its own, it wouldn’t do enough to reduce gun violence.”

-Kristina Peterson and Michael C. Bender, “Background-Checks Bill Runs Into Hurdles in Congress,” The Wall Street online, Feb. 26, 2018 07:36pm