Patrick Leahy hopes to have a bill on the floor by late February or early March. Senate gears up for battle over guns

With the Obama administration ramping up its efforts to enact new gun control legislation, the fight is now shifting to Capitol Hill in what looks to be a long, high-stakes battle.

Pro- and anti-gun control rallies have popped up across the nation. Gun buyback programs have netted thousands of weapons in New Jersey, California, Florida and Washington state. And the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont, has scheduled its first hearing on gun violence for Wednesday.


Scheduled to testify are Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president and CEO of the National Rifle Association, and Mark Kelly, husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was severely wounded two years ago in a mass shooting that left six people dead and more than a dozen wounded. Giffords, who retired from Congress a year ago, and Kelly, a retired astronaut, have since become gun-control advocates.

Leahy hopes to have a bill on the Senate floor by late February or early March after a series of hearings.

Leahy, along with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) — who is trying to craft a bill mandating universal background checks for gun purchasers — hope to use the “lowest common denominator” approach to assembling the Senate legislation.

The bill coming out of Leahy’s committee is expected to include universal background checks but not a more contentious ban on the sale of assault weapons pushed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Schumer, a co-sponsor.

Schumer has also been seeking bipartisan backing for his own universal background checks proposal, including talks with Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.). Another conservative Republican, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, has signaled that he’d be open to such a proposal but has not endorsed a bill yet.

Under current law, gun sales among private parties do not require background checks and neither do sales during gun shows in most states. Experts say there’s no way to know how many guns trade hands this way each year, but estimates range as high as 6 million or more.

“Rather than refiling our background checks bill right away, we are taking the time to approach members on both sides of the aisle in order to earn bipartisan support,” Schumer said in statement to POLITICO. “Our hope is to have a strong consensus bill that Chairman Leahy will consider marking up in his committee.”

Should the Leahy bill reach the Senate floor, amendments are expected to be considered, including the assault weapons ban, a prohibition on high-capacity ammunition clips, new restrictions on gun trafficking and expanded funding for mental health screening and treatment, among others.

Such a strategy would allow senators, especially Democrats up for reelection in red states in 2014, to support only the measures they favor, such as more background checks. These Democrats would then go on the record opposing an assault weapons ban, which would aid their reelection efforts.

Feinstein, appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, acknowledged the assault weapons ban faces “an uphill climb” despite an endorsement by President Barack Obama and gun control groups nationwide.

Still, she said, “I think I can get it passed because the American people are very much for it.”

In another interview, on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Feinstein said Reid had told her she could offer the assault weapons ban as an amendment to any gun control measure on the Senate floor if it fails to make it into the bill crafted by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“There will be a package put together” by the Judiciary Committee, Feinstein said. “If assault weapons is left out of the package — and I’m a member of [the] Judiciary [Committee], No. 2 in seniority — I’ve been assured by the majority leader I’ll be able to do it as an amendment on the floor.”

Feinstein, who became mayor of San Francisco in 1978 after the assassination of Mayor George Moscone, also slammed the NRA, a bitter opponent since she helped pushed through an assault weapons ban in 1994. It expired in 2004.

“The NRA is venal. … The NRA has become an institution of gun manufacturers,” Feinstein said. “They come after you. They put together large amounts of money to defeat you.”

New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly supports the assault weapons ban, but — like Feinstein — said it will be difficult to get through Congress.

“It’s a move in the right direction. As the senator said, it’s probably a heavy lift in Congress,” Kelly said during a CBS interview. “But for us in New York City, and I believe in most urban centers throughout America, the problem really is concealable handguns.”

Reid has asserted that he will not move a gun control bill through the Senate that cannot get backing from the GOP-controlled House. During appearances on the Sunday talk shows, several senior House Republicans signaled there is little support among their colleagues for an assault weapons ban. Instead, they suggested Congress dig into violence in the media, mental health screening and even the use of “psychotropic drugs” by children.

“Don’t just go say, ‘We’re going to do an assault weapons ban,’ and that’s going to solve the problem,” Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” “because it’s not going to get to the root of the problem.”

“We need to look beyond just recycling failed policies of the past,” said Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee.

“Let’s go beyond just this debate and make sure we get deeper. What’s our policy on mental illness? What’s going on in our culture that produces this kind of thing?” he said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “You know, we need to have that kind of a discussion and debate.”