Rep. Mike Thompson is fired up over gun-violence gridlock in Congress

Mike Thompson was talking gun safety legislation as he slipped two yellow shells into a 20-gauge Browning shotgun, snapped the breech closed and yelled, “Pull.”

Two orange sporting clays sailed in a low arc above a muddy field, dark clouds hanging over San Pablo Bay in the distance. Thompson aimed and fired twice.

The first flying target shattered, raining debris on the ground below. A second disc suffered the same fate.

The white-haired congressman stared for a moment with a satisfied look before turning to reload.

“I'm just trying to stop the bad guys from getting guns,” Thompson said after a day of shooting in January, which included an early morning duck hunt at the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area.

But the St. Helena Democrat, lifelong hunter, Vietnam War veteran and chairman of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, has yet to hit his most important mark.

The party's point man on gun control has been unable to bring a bipartisan background checks bill up for a vote despite continued mass shootings that have taken innocent lives from Newtown, Conn., to San Bernardino.

Congressional Republicans, backed by the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups, are blocking legislative efforts that Democrats and their allies say are needed to stem an estimated 30,000 gun deaths a year in the United States.

Recent polls found a majority of Americans support such measures, including mental health screening for gun purchasers and creation of a federal database to track gun sales.

“Over 30 people are killed every day by someone using a gun,” Thompson said. “Young lives, old lives, mothers, brothers and sisters are killed. Lives just snuffed out. There is mass shooting after mass shooting and nothing gets done. And the American people want something done.”

The deadlock on Capitol Hill has proved one of the greatest frustrations of Thompson's 17-year run in Congress and comes on what is arguably the biggest stage of his political career. No other issue has given him such national prominence, with news outlets seeking him out for interviews about gun control and town hall appearances by his task force in communities across the country.

Only a handful of Democrats, including President Barack Obama, have cut a higher profile on the issue.

The work has put him on the emotional front lines of the political standoff, giving him access to gun-violence victims or their families while also leaving him open to criticism from constituents, including gun-rights activists who accuse him of trying to take away their guns.

In the months after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, he met with some of the parents whose children were killed. One father described how the 20-year-old gunman placed the muzzle of an AR-15-style rifle to his son's head and pulled the trigger.

“It shook me to my bones,” said Thompson, the father of two, grandfather of three. “It's not comprehensible that someone could be that vicious and deranged to do something like that to a child.”

Thompson was also at the White House in January as a stymied Obama announced a slate of executive actions on gun control meant to bypass Congress. In his speech, Obama recalled through tears the hundreds of victims of gun violence during his administration.

“There was no one in the room who didn't tear up, myself included,” Thompson said. “You can't sit or stand dry-eyed when people talk about that terrible tragedy.”

High political stakes

Gun-rights advocates dismiss the campaign to create new gun-control laws as misguided attempts by the government to stop violence they say is rooted in other causes. They worry that a bolstered system of background checks is part of a liberal agenda to strip Americans of their right to bear arms and suggest Thompson is being used for that goal.

The stance is more formidable given the political stakes involved in an election year. Republicans control both the Senate and House of Representatives and appear unwilling to move on any gun-control measures amid a contest to determine who occupies the White House.

Republican candidates for president have incorporated pro gun-rights messages into their stump speeches and those in Congress who might be open to gun control are reluctant to speak up for fear of angering voters, political watchers say.

Many gun owners are demanding they hold the line and are buying up more firearms than ever in anticipation of what they believe will be a federal crackdown.

Clarence “Herb” Williams of Petaluma, a board member of the California Rifle and Pistol Association, a state affiliate of the NRA, said Thompson has “always been a good, pro-hunting guy,” but accused him of jumping on a bandwagon and backing bad legislation.