The Senate stumbled out of the gate Monday in its efforts to enact even modest gun legislation, raising doubts about whether Congress can do anything in the wake of this month’s massacre at a Florida high school.

Senate Republicans, backed by the National Rifle Association and President Donald Trump, are pressing to quickly pass a narrow bill aimed at improving records and information-sharing in the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

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But attempts to pass the bill, called Fix NICS, encountered resistance from opposite ends of the political spectrum on Monday: Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), a conservative, held up quick passage of the bill even as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) blasted the GOP for shirking a broader debate on gun violence.

Senate Democrats say the Fix NICS bill falls far short of the action that Capitol Hill should take in an era of increasingly frequent mass shootings.

“If we only pass Fix NICS, we’ll be right back here after the next shooting, in nearly the same place. If all Congress does in response to the Parkland shooting is to pass Fix NICS, we won’t have done our job. We must do more than that,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Monday. He said the Senate should at least pass legislation implementing universal background checks.

But that proposal has been rejected twice by the Senate in the past five years, despite public support for instituting background checks on Internet and gun show sales. And the chief GOP sponsor of the Fix NICS bill rejected Schumer’s plea to go much bigger than improving the existing background check system.

“I’m for doing what’s achievable. If we want to get bogged down again, do nothing? To me that’s unacceptable,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas). Fix NICS is “the most obvious place to start. I’m not saying finish there, but start there and let’s get that done.”

It’s unclear precisely what Trump wants Congress to do. He has spoken of improving background checks, raising the age for buying some rifles to 21 and enacting a ban on bump stocks, which allows semi-automatic weapons to mimic the rate of fire of fully automatic ones.

But Republicans are bearish on doing much beyond Fix NICS and enacting a bump stock ban, with that perhaps being done under the president’s executive authority.

“Most of us believe that’s a Second Amendment right that’s not to be trifled with,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) of the gun control debate. He said both Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had little appetite for a big gun debate.

“We’re not going to ban the AR-15. But we can ban bump stocks. I don’t know about the age change,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in an interview with The Greenville News. “I don’t know where that’s going to go. It depends on what the president does.”

Cornyn said he was bullish the House would accept his background checks bill. The House passed a bill in December that included such language but paired it with provisions allowing people with concealed-carry weapons permits to take their firearm across state lines. Multiple sources told Politico that House leadership promised conservatives that they would not decouple the two issues.

But House Speaker Paul Ryan spoke with Trump over the weekend on the matter, according to a House GOP source, and Trump clearly wants action — even if the bill itself merely reinforces existing law as the Fix NICS measure does. The plan, which was introduced after last year’s shooting in a Texas church by a man with a history of domestic assault, is intended to provide the FBI with more information on people’s criminal histories.

Senate Republicans surveyed their members on Monday afternoon to see if they could quickly pass the Fix NICS bill, but Lee held up attempts to do so. The Senate may need a roll-call vote to pass the legislation, which would be difficult to do this week, given that the Senate has already scheduled votes on presidential nominations.

Senate Democrats support the Fix NICS bill and would not necessarily vote it down in the end, an aide said, though the party could also block quick action on it and demand a more robust gun debate in the coming days.

“The public wants a debate in Congress on the issue of gun violence. Let’s have the debate. Let’s not prejudge what can and can’t pass. Republican leadership would be giving up on even trying if they’re trying to close the debate out before it’s even started,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who is the top Democratic co-sponsor of the Cornyn bill.

Democrats want to at least have votes on proposals like universal background checks. A bill to expand background checks is being revived and revised by Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) in an attempt to get more GOP support, though its prospects are grim without support from Trump.

“We’re not going to bring it back unless the president signs on,” Manchin said Monday on West Virginia’s MetroNews. He plans to discuss the proposal with Trump.

McConnell has yet to announce any Senate action on guns, and not all Republicans support limited debate.

“Start with the background check bill and let that bill be fully amended. I personally think that’s personally better,” said Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, a member of GOP leadership. He said he did not know whether McConnell agreed with him.

Congressional Republicans are also looking at a new infusion of funding for mental health, perhaps on a yearlong spending bill that must pass by March 23, according to House GOP aides. Lawmakers are also considering allotting new grant money to school security systems in the omnibus spending package.

But it’s difficult to find anything more popular than the Fix NICS bill, which has support from the NRA and McConnell as well as Everytown for Gun Safety and Giffords, a group started by former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.). Both Schumer and McConnell are co-sponsors. And White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that Trump backs the Cornyn bill.

“We’re going to do very strong background checks,” Trump said at an event with governors Monday. He also called for banning bump stocks that increase the rate of fire of rifles and said Republicans may have to take on the NRA over some gun proposals.

The NRA opposes raising the age to 21 to buy some rifles, an initiative Trump has praised and which has the support of a small number of Senate Republicans like Jeff Flake of Arizona, Marco Rubio of Florida and Pat Roberts of Kansas. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is also “inclined” to support such a bill, which is still being drafted, according to Flake.

Hatch is among the GOP senators mulling a change in the rifle age.

“We’ll have to look at that. That’s not something you just shove aside,” he said in an interview on Monday afternoon.

But such a proposal may struggle to get the support of enough of the chamber’s 51 Republicans to clear the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, let alone pass the more conservative House.

“I’m very skeptical about that. Because the vast majority of 18-, 19-, 20-, 21-year-olds are law-abiding citizens who aren’t a threat to anyone,” Toomey said Sunday on “Meet the Press.” “I’m willing to hear the other side on this, but I’m skeptical.”

Elana Schor and Rachael Bade contributed to this report.

