Democrats in the House and Senate are making clear their plans to “pivot” under Donald Trump, turning from their efforts to push gun control in order to focus on opposing pro-gun legislation instead.
While speaking to reporters on Thursday, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) said, “First and foremost, we have to play defense.”
He added: “The NRA is clearly going to make a big ask of Donald Trump early in 2017. We don’t know what it is yet. We can guess that it might be a national concealed weapon law. But the NRA clearly is going to want something in return for their early support of Trump.”
According to Roll Call, Murphy said there will continue to be a push for gun control at the state level; in places where gun controllers believe they can use “ballot measures” to secure universal background checks. Washington state–which witnessed five killed in a Burlington mass shooting on September 23–adopted universal background checks via ballot initiative in 2014.
Murphy summed up the Democrats’ plan for the next four years: “We will make change one state at a time and we will hold the line here in Washington.”
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) explained that another aspect of the Democrats’ plan will be to keep Republican lawmakers busy via Congressional hearings. He said Democrats will call “for hearings on gun violence,” adding, “The best defense is a good offense.”
Blumenthal also mentioned the possibility of raising discussions on “gun violence” during the confirmation hearing for Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions and other Trump nominees.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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