Texas shooting raises pressure on Mitch McConnell to pass gun laws. Why it will likely fail

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a longstanding opponent of strengthening gun regulations and winner of the National Rifle Association's "Defender of Freedom" award, spoke of prayer the morning after a gunman slaughtered 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school.

But he said nothing during his speech on the U.S. Senate floor about enacting new gun laws.

And on Thursday, during another Senate speech, he failed to even mention the shooting.

Still, early that afternoon, a CNN reporter said McConnell encouraged Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, to discuss the possibility of some sort of legislative response with Democratic senators such as Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

"I am hopeful that we could come up with a bipartisan solution," he told CNN.

His track record on gun-control laws would argue against it.

McConnell's comments come amid renewed demands that he and Republican senators end years of opposition to proposed firearms regulations, including expanded background check rules on gun sales and "red flag laws" that temporarily restrict people's access to guns if it's determined they're a danger to themselves or others. 

Those demands aren't just coming from Democratic opponents. They're voices like NBA head coach Steve Kerr of the Golden State Warriors, who name-checked McConnell Tuesday night in a wrenching response to the nation's latest school shooting.

“When are we gonna do something?" Kerr, whose father was shot and killed in 1984, said as he slapped the top of a table at a pre-game press conference. "I’m tired. I’m so tired of getting up here and offering condolences to the devastated families that are out there. … I'm tired of the moments of silence.

"… So I ask you, Mitch McConnell, I ask all of you senators who refuse to do anything about the violence and school shootings and supermarket shootings, I ask you: Are you going to put your own desire for power ahead of the lives of our children and our elderly and our churchgoers? Because that’s what it looks like."

Kerr specifically called out senators for their inaction on HR 8, a bill that would expand background checks for people who want to buy or transfer guns, including between unlicensed private individuals.

The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passed HR 8 last year. But the Senate, split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, requires 60 votes to pass most legislation, including gun regulations like HR 8.

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"There’s 50 senators, right now, who refuse to vote on HR 8," Kerr said Tuesday. "And there’s a reason they won’t vote on it: To hold onto power."

President Joe Biden and other Democratic politicians — as well as countless people on social media — were harshly critical of continued efforts to stymie gun legislation.

“As a nation, we have to ask ourselves: When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” Biden said in a public address Tuesday night in the wake of the Uvalde school massacre.

McConnell's office had not responded as of Thursday afternoon to The Courier Journal's request Wednesday for comment on questions about whether Kentucky's longtime senator will support any proposed gun regulation bills in Congress. 

A spokesperson for McConnell referred The Courier Journal to his statement to CNN. 

McConnell has filled one of the Senate's top leadership roles for 15 years. And as the powerful Senate majority leader from January 2015 through January 2021, he controlled what bills did — and didn't — come up for a vote, including legislation that would've tightened regulations on guns.

Americans generally support more gun restrictions

Republican politicians — and politically active groups like the NRA — have broadly opposed new federal laws and regulations restricting access to firearms, viewing them as an attack on Second Amendment rights.

That doesn't align with most Americans' views.

National polls in 2019 reported a majority of Americans favor stricter gun laws, with majority support among both Democrats and Republicans for expanding background checks.

According to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll conducted the day after the Uvalde massacre, nearly two-thirds of the country supports stricter gun control laws, while a slight majority of Republicans oppose them.

Support was even higher for specific gun control measures, with more than 80% supporting universal background checks and red flag laws, including a majority of Republicans.

More than two-thirds also indicated supporting a ban on assault-style weapons, including a plurality of Republican respondents. 

But deep-red Kentucky, McConnell's home state, is filled with tens of thousands of proud gun owners and has some of the country's loosest gun restrictions.

Virtually all of Kentucky's 120 counties adopted Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions in recent years that oppose infringements on the constitutional right to bear arms.

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Simply put, McConnell knows that people who elected him have strong feelings about restricting gun rights.

In a statement on social media Tuesday night and in a speech Wednesday morning, McConnell spoke about how the country is praying for the victims of this new shooting, for their families and for the first responders on-scene. 

"Our country is sickened and outraged by the senseless evil that struck Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas," McConnell said on the Senate floor. "These innocent kids were simply going to school. They put on their backpacks, said goodbye to their parents, and headed off for another day of learning and friendship. There were only two days left before summer break.

"And because of this maniac (the shooter), at least 19 of these kids never made it home." 

As the investigation into the shooting continues, McConnell spoke of praying for the first responders "whose dedication yesterday saved lives."

"Most of all, the entire nation's hearts are broken for the victims and for their families. Words simply fail," he said.

Americans hold vastly differing opinions on gun restrictions, depending on what policy proposals are up for consideration, according to University of Louisville political science professor Melissa Merry, who has studied how gun rights and gun control organizations frame issues of firearm violence.

While there is significant support, even among gun owners, for laws such as universal background checks, she said other proposals, such as limiting access to certain types of guns, aren't as popular.

And it isn't just conservative politicians who broadly oppose stricter gun rules.

"There's such a strong gun culture in America," Merry said. "And people who support gun rights … they turn out, they vote." 

Do stricter gun laws reduce shootings?

Plenty of peer-reviewed research examines the relationship between gun deaths and injuries and firearms regulations, Merry said.

"And there's a clear correlation that the more regulations that are in place, there is a definite reduction in gun injury and death."

That doesn't mean gun rights activists lack evidence they can point to in support of their arguments, Merry said.

For example, they point to instances where someone defensively used a gun and prevented harm from happening — the "good guy with a gun" theory.

However, a big debate exists about how often such cases actually occur, she said. 

What gun regulations are proposed in Congress?

Several bills that would tighten restrictions on guns in America sit before Congress right now. All have stalled.

HR 8, the bill Kerr highlighted, passed the House in March 2021 with eight Republicans joining nearly all the chamber's Democrats in voting for it.

Also called the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021, HR 8 would vastly expand the circumstances under which selling or transferring a gun requires a background check, including sales by private people or groups and online gun sales. It would eliminate the so-called "gun show loophole."

Another bill stuck in Congress is HR 1446, or the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021, which would close the so-called "Charleston loophole" that allowed a white supremacist who murdered nine Black people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015 to buy a gun — even though he was prohibited from purchasing one under the law. 

That loophole allows gun sales to proceed if the required background check hasn't been completed in three business days. The House passed HR 1446 last year, with two Republicans joining nearly all the chamber's Democrats in voting for it.

Several bills concerning red flag laws, including HR 3480 and S 292 (the latter of which is sponsored by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida), also are stalled in Congress. 

Those proposals are intended to help state or local governments implement red flag laws, also known as extreme risk protection order laws, that restrict a person's access to guns if a judge determines they are at risk of hurting themselves or others.

The Courier Journal emailed questions to McConnell's spokespeople Wednesday morning, including:

• What his stance is on HR 8, HR 1446, HR 3480 and S 292;
• If McConnell is willing to support any proposed gun regulation bills currently before Congress;
• If he's willing to support any kind of red flag law or any kind of bill expanding background checks; and
• If he's willing to support any new rules or regulations concerning gun sales or gun ownership.

The Courier Journal hasn't received a response.

How McConnell handled past pushes for stricter gun regulations

McConnell's resistance to gun regulations has deep roots, even in the wake of mass shootings.

Following the massacre of 20 children and six adults in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, McConnell successfully led a filibuster of bipartisan legislation to close loopholes in federal background checks for gun purchases, which had the support of 54 senators.

McConnell's campaign — which months earlier sent an email to supporters warning that then-President Barack Obama and Democratic "gun-grabbers" had them surrounded— posted a meme an hour after the defeat of the bill, gloating that McConnell had denied then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid even the tiniest piece of gun control legislation.

After three mass shootings in August 2019 that killed 38 people, McConnell also resisted a Democratic push to pass new gun control measures — including an earlier version of HR 8 — that had passed the House.

His opposition to gun control legislation spans to the early part of his career when his campaign ads attacked opponent Harvey Sloan as a gun control supporter in McConnell's successful 1990 reelection race — shortly after a mass shooting killed eight at Louisville's Standard Gravure printing press within The Courier Journal complex.

McConnell voted against the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act that passed in 1993, which created a mandatory federal background check for gun purchases by licensed dealers and a five-day waiting period for such purchases until such checks became instant.

The following year, McConnell also voted against a 10-year ban on the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and certain high-capacity magazines — which passed, only to expire in 2004, when Republicans controlled the White House and Congress.

In the immediate aftermath of Tuesday's massacre in Texas, which is the deadliest shooting at an American elementary school since Sandy Hook, McConnell did not give any public indication that he will reverse his decades-long course and support new regulations and restrictions on gun access.

The NRA's support for McConnell, other GOP senators scrutinized again 

For his opposition, McConnell and Republicans have been deeply rewarded by gun support groups.

According to the nonprofit OpenSecrets, the NRA had contributed $1.3 million in support of McConnell since 1989. (McConnell joined the Senate in 1985.)

Several NRA PACs spent $11 million in the 2020 cycle on independent expenditures supporting the election of Republican Senate candidates — with the fate of McConnell's GOP majority on the line. 

The NRA spent $29.3 million in total supporting Republican federal candidates in the 2020 election cycle, after spending $52.6 million in 2016.

Kentucky's junior senator, Rand Paul, himself a vocal critic of laws limiting gun rights, has similarly reaped those rewards.

He has received $104,456 in support from the NRA throughout his career, including $94,000 the NRA spent in independent expenditures for his 2016 reelection race, per Federal Election Commission records.

Paul posted on social media about prayer in the wake of the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting, saying Tuesday night: "Kelley (Paul's wife) and I are horrified by this senseless massacre. Our prayers go out to the victims and their families."

A CNN reporter tweeted Wednesday morning that Paul did not answer questions from a couple of reporters concerning expanding background checks for the sale of guns.

Morgan Watkins is The Courier Journal's chief political reporter. Contact her at mwatkins@courierjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter: @morganwatkins26.