Gun control is not a priority for most voters these days, and it’s a huge liability for Democrats hoping to engage in outreach to rural voters, but that’s not stopping one of the Senate’s most ardent anti-gun advocates from pushing his party to go big on restricting the right to keep and bear arms ahead of the midterms.
Connecticut’s Chris Murphy knows that gun control legislation isn’t going anywhere in the U.S. Senate at the moment, however, which means that his lobbying efforts are focused on the White House and not his colleagues on Capitol Hill.
“Because we are at a logjam in the United States Senate, it means that the burden on the administration to step up and take action is great,” Murphy said. “This administration can do more, this administration should do more. And I think it’s time to see some more urgency from the Biden Administration when it comes to the steps that they can take to save lives.”
Additionally, Murphy and some gun control activists want to see Biden create a White House-level “National Office of Gun Violence Prevention,” though what that position would entail and what authority it would have remains unclear.
Neither of those measures are likely to be acceptable to gun owners, and it remains to be seen how enthusiastically they’re received by gun control groups who may be disappointed if the new rules don’t ban privately-built firearms or brace-equipped AR-style pistols outright. I have a sneaking suspicion that the ATF rules are going to go too far for most gun owners and not far enough for many gun control activists, in part because Biden has a knack for disappointing most everybody, but I guess we’ll see soon enough.
What about a new nominee to head up the ATF? Biden vowed to name one after David Chipman’s nomination was pulled, but we haven’t even heard a whisper about any potential replacements in the months since, and my guess is that the White House isn’t willing to move forward with another candidate until they’ve identified someone who’d be acceptable to senators like Joe Manchin and Angus King as well as activists like Shannon Watts and Giffords’ Peter Ambler. The real question is are they even looking for a candidate at the moment?
It’s a foregone conclusion that Joe Biden isn’t going to do anything to please or placate Second Amendment activists between now and the midterms, but short of trying to ban AR-15s through executive action I’m not sure what he could do that would really energize the gun prohibition lobby ahead of Election Day either. I think the most likely scenario is that Biden continues to disappoint people on both sides of the issue, albeit for very different reasons.
