Cornyn wants to be perceived as taking action on gun violence, even though he knows that action won’t make any difference.
Cornyn wants to be perceived as taking action on gun violence, even though he knows that action won’t make any difference.
S enator John Cornyn of Texas is “feeling the pressure” to pass gun-control legislation “after years of congressional failure to get a bill done,” according to Politico. As part of a self-described “coalition of the rational,” Cornyn intends to use his “unique position” in the Republican caucus to . . . well, actually, that part’s not clear. What is clear — what seems really to matter here — is that Cornyn wants to do something: “If the Senate can’t come up with a legislative response after the killings in Uvalde, Texas, Cornyn said, ‘it will be embarrassing.’”
Will it, though? Why? Per Politico’s report, there doesn’t seem to be any particular “legislative response” that Cornyn believes will help. He just wants to avoid “the narrative that we can’t get things done.” What things? Who knows? At various points, Politico describes the coveted outcome as a “gun safety deal”; “a bill”; “the votes on guns”; “a successful gun vote”; a “bipartisan agreement”; “the plan”; “gun policy reforms”; “gun-talks”; “progress around gun safety”; “proposals”; “an agreement”; a “package”; “a deal with Democrats on an issue as elusive as guns”; “guns legislation”; and “any guns agreement.” And then it notes that, when pushed, “Cornyn declined to say” what he’d accept. Undeterred, the outlet briefly describes what other people might hope to achieve, and then moves on to a long discussion of what really matters here: the likelihood that “clinching a deal with Democrats” will help Cornyn succeed Mitch McConnell “as Senate GOP leader.”
This is a bad, careless, faithless way to make policy — especially at the federal level, where hasty decisions often have consequences that last for decades. It would be one thing if Cornyn were in possession of a few well-thought-out ideas that he had hoped for a while to make law. But, by all accounts, he’s not. Rather, he seems to be trying to work out what trinkets he and his party can give to the Democrats to make them go away. One can comprehend why this approach would make sense for the Chris Murphys of the world; Murphy wants to radically diminish the right to keep and bear arms, and he is happy to sign on to anything that helps him get closer to that goal. But Cornyn — who does not share Murphy’s assumptions about the problem, and who has said explicitly that he does not wish to restrict the Second Amendment — is a different kettle of fish.
The proposals that Politico mentions as being under consideration are “changing the background check system, providing additional investments in mental health and school security, and giving grants for states to establish so-called red flag laws.” All of these should be non-starters. “Changing the background check system” has been rejected by the Senate repeatedly, for good reason, and it will be rejected if it is brought up again. “Providing additional investments in mental health and school security” is another way of saying that the Treasury should send money it doesn’t have to states that don’t need it to meddle in matters over which the federal government has no authority. “Giving grants for states to establish so-called red flag laws” means broadly the same thing, but worse, given that the mere mention of federal involvement in any state-level “red flag” system is guaranteed to destroy trust. As for the laundry list of proposals that President Biden indulged himself in last night? Every item was either a pipe dream or a question that is beyond the federal government’s rightful purview.
Which is to say that Senator Cornyn is indulging the false premises of his colleague across the aisle — and he doesn’t even sincerely believe in them. Cornyn knows that the federal government cannot prevent mass shootings. He knows that the media’s assumption that Congress’s effectiveness is measured by how many new laws it passes is a silly one. He knows that there is no legislative appetite for the gun-control measures that Democrats truly want, and that it is beyond the federal government’s constitutional authority to enact the other measures being bandied about. But apparently, he doesn’t care. Instead, he plans to feel “embarrassed” until the Senate spends billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to give the media its “successful gun vote.” Heavy lies the head that wants the crown.