On Deep Background

We've been down this road before. 

An overwhelming majority of Americans of all political stripes are open to universal background checks for firearms ownership and a national database. Suburban women are no different.

A new poll conducted by a premier Republican polling firm shows that about 3 in 4 suburban women favor stricter gun laws. The Republican Main Street Partnership, which supports moderate Republicans and has endorsed “red flag” bills under consideration in the House, commissioned a Public Opinion Strategies survey of 1,000 registered voters across five suburban House districts: Colorado’s Sixth, Kansas’s Third, North Carolina’s Ninth, Pennsylvania’s First and Virginia’s 10th. The group shared with me the topline results among women in these suburban areas:  

• 72 percent said they think gun laws should be stricter, compared to four percent who said they should be less strict and 23 percent who said they should be kept as they are now.
• 55 percent said they think stricter gun laws would help prevent gun violence.
• 90 percent support requiring universal background checks for gun purchases at gun shows or other private sales, which would require all gun owners to file with a national firearms registry.
• 88 percent said they would support requiring a 48-hour waiting period between the purchase of a firearm and when the buyer can take possession of that gun.
• 84 percent back a national red flag law that would permit law enforcement to temporarily retain firearms from a person who may present a danger to others or themselves.
• 76 percent said they would ban the purchase and use of semi-automatic assault-style weapons like the AK-47 and the AR-15.
• And 72 percent would support banning the sale and possession of high-capacity or extended ammunition magazines, which allow guns to shoot more than 10 bullets before needing to be reloaded.

The female respondents were read six issues and asked which they want their lawmaker to focus on the most. Working to prevent gun violence was No. 1, selected by 30 percent of suburban women. Health care was No. 2, with 24 percent, followed by addressing illegal immigration (14 percent) as the No. 3 priority. Further down the list were improving the economy, balancing the budget, improving the country’s infrastructure and strengthening national security.

All of those five districts are swing districts, including NC-9 of stolen absentee ballot fame, with a special election there next month, and it's a Republican poll, so if anything the numbers are shaded in favor of the NRA.

Having said that, all of these initiatives have zero chance of passage.

Following his now well-established pattern after mass shootings, Trump continues to back away from his initial support for "strong background checks." When the bodies are still being buried – whether after Las Vegas, Parkland, Fla., or El Paso – the president proclaims that he will take meaningful action to address the epidemic of gun violence. But as public attention wanes, and he faces pushback from the National Rifle Association, Trump returns to saying the problem that needs to be addressed is actually mental health.

“It's the people that pull the trigger, not the gun that pulls the trigger,” Trump said last night on the tarmac in New Jersey, as he prepared to fly back to Washington after 10 days at the golf club he owns there. “We have a very, very big mental health problem, and Congress is working on various things and I will be looking at it. … They have bipartisan committees working on background checks and various other things. And we’ll see. I don't want people to forget that this is a mental health problem. I don't want them to forget that because it is. It’s a mental health problem."

There have always been lots of violent people in the world, but they did not always have such easy access to weapons of war and massive magazines. Mass shootings did not used to happen with such regularity, and they did not used to be so deadly.

Asked last night if he’ll support universal background checks, Trump was curt and noncommittal. “I'm not saying anything,” he replied. “I'm saying Congress is going to be reporting back to me with ideas. And they'll come in from Democrats and Republicans. And I'll look at it very strongly. But just remember, we already have a lot of background checks, okay? Thank you.”

Besides, Mitch McConnell will never allow legislation to even get a floor vote.

Until we start seeing people on the evening news interviews saying "I voted for this candidate because of their support for new gun safety regulations and background checks" or better yet, "I voted against this incumbent because they've had years to do something about background checks and didn't lift a finger" then no, nothing will happen.

Meanwhile, I expect we'll visit the issue of background checks and assault weapons at least one or two more times between now and November 2020, and the same exact articles will be written and the poll results won't change, and Mitch will still do nothing.

And the American people will re-elect 95% of the incumbents who did nothing.