Bipartisan Senate Group Proposes ‘No Fly, No Buy’ Gun Measure
WASHINGTON — Signaling a possible breakthrough in the long stalemate in Congress over tightening the nation’s gun laws, a bipartisan group of senators called on Tuesday for banning gun sales to terrorism suspects on the government’s “no-fly” list.
The proposed measure, while modest, puts new muscle and momentum behind what would be one of the few restrictions placed on gun ownership in the past 20 years.
The push for the compromise bill, led by Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Democrat of North Dakota, came a day after the Senate refused to advance any of four measures intended to make it harder for suspected terrorists to buy guns.
Ms. Collins and the lawmakers who joined her, including Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, who is frequently mentioned as a potential running mate for Hillary Clinton, voiced deepening exasperation over the failure of Congress to take any action to prevent shootings like the massacre this month in Orlando, Fla.
“Surely the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Orlando that took so many lives are a call for compromise, a plea for bipartisan action,” Ms. Collins said at a news conference. “Essentially, we believe if you are too dangerous to fly on an airplane, you are too dangerous to buy a gun,” she added.
The Collins proposal is tailored narrowly to prohibit gun sales to suspected terrorists who appear on the government’s “no-fly” list or its “selectee” list, which requires more rigorous security checks before a person is allowed to board an airplane.
Those lists, containing a total of about 109,000 people, of whom just 2,700 are American citizens, are far smaller than the federal terrorist screening database, which includes about one million names and was the focus of a proposal sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, one of the four measures defeated on Monday.
Ms. Collins’s measure would bar gun sales to anyone on the two lists, but would allow for an appeal by any citizen or green card holder blocked from making a purchase and it would award lawyer’s fees if the appeal is successful.
The bill would also require notification of federal and local law enforcement agencies if anyone who had been on the lists in the previous five years seeks to buy a weapon — a provision intended to address the situation in Orlando, in which the gunman, Omar Mateen, had been on placed such lists but removed before he bought his weapons.
In addition, the bill would give the federal authorities the flexibility to allow a gun purchase by someone on one of the lists if needed to safeguard a continuing investigation.
While leaders in each party expressed pointed misgivings about the proposal, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, indicated that it would be likely to get a vote as an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill that is being debated on the Senate floor.
“I’m going to be working to make sure she gets a vote on that proposal,” Mr. McConnell said.
To overcome procedural hurdles and win approval, the measure would need the support of 60 senators, and it was not immediately clear that enough Republicans would back it.
Just three of the 54 Senate Republicans — Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Jeff Flake of Arizona, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — attended the news conference with Ms. Collins, well short of the 16 votes needed even if the entire Democratic conference voted in favor, which was also not assured.
Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican and author of another of the proposals that was voted down on Monday afternoon, said he was apprehensive about the provision in the Collins proposal because it permitted an appeal only after a gun sale is prohibited.
Mr. Cornyn said: “I think it’s a slippery slope when an American citizen is denied a constitutional right without forcing the government to come forward with some evidence on the front end, as opposed to leaving that on the back end. But we’ll see how the vote comes out.”
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York said that there were numerous flaws in the Collins proposal, but Democrats ultimately were willing to consider the measure, noting that it would represent a breakthrough if adopted, given the near-certain opposition of the National Rifle Association.
“It’ll be the first time that in a bipartisan way, with significant Republican support, the N.R.A. is told, ‘You’re way off-base,’” Mr. Schumer said.
Supporters of the Collins measure said they believed it was written strategically to avoid becoming ensnared in that old tug of war, by focusing on a simple goal: “no fly, no buy.”
Mr. Kaine, at one point pounding the wooden lectern in front of him, said: “I am sick of the shootings. I am sick of the vigils. I am sick of the homicide victims’ support groups. I am sick of the claims that we’ll do something about it. I am sick of the partisan rhetoric and I am really sick of getting to the end of all of it and not doing something about it, and seeing that happen again and again and again and again.”
