Update:…
There IS a deal.*…
They are trying to get 60 Senator’s to vote for a bill that does NOT ban assult weapons….
That does NOT raise the age for buying those rifles…
That does NOT connect with the more stringent House legislation already passed…
The outcome for the Senate bill is NOT a lock even though it’s a watered down effort….
The four main Senate negotiators — Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and GOP Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — have been in talks all weekend to hammer out the final details and have also been in discussions with a larger bipartisan group of negotiators.
The House voted 223-204 last week to pass a wide-ranging package of gun control legislation called the Protecting Our Kids Act. The measure is not expected to pass the Senate, however, amid widespread GOP opposition to stricter gun control.
Passage of the legislation in the House took place hours after an emotional hearing on gun violence in which families of victims pleaded for more action.
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland on Sunday praised the Senate negotiators for their work on the legislation but stopped short of voicing his support for the forthcoming package.
“Well, we would certainly vote on it and work on it,” he said on “State of the Union” when asked if would vote for the bill, adding: “It’s moving in the right direction. We’re glad the Senate is finally awake about this.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive Democrat from New York, said later on the same program that she would be willing to support the legislation “if we get a real baby step, not kind of a distraction, I think, from the solution.” She stressed that including a provision for background checks is critical….
* The outline, which has yet to be finalized, falls far short of the sprawling reforms that Mr. Biden, gun control activists and a majority of Democrats have long championed, such as a ban on assault weapons and universal background checks. And it is nowhere near as sweeping as a package of gun measures passed almost along party lines in the House last week, which would bar the sale of semiautomatic weapons to people under the age of 21, ban the sale of large-capacity magazines and implement a federal red-flag law, among other measures….More...