Gavin Aronsen

Reporter

Gavin is a Mother Jones reporter in the DC bureau.

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Gavin is an Iowa native, and covered the 2008 first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses for the Ames Tribune. He has also contributed to the Agence France-Presse, Daily Beast, Iowa Independent, Manhattan Media, and Village Voice.

Background Checks May Be Gun Control's Best Hope, for Now

Gun control advocates think public pressure will force enough senators to support tighter restrictions on sales.

—By Gavin Aronsen

| Wed Mar. 27, 2013 1:51 PM PDT

Last week, the Senate's focus on guns shifted away from an assault weapons ban toward beefing up the loophole-ridden federal background check system. Gun control groups, sensing a chance for success with this approach, are laying on a full-court press to convince pro-gun lawmakers to come around on a proposal that has overwhelming public support. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, through his group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, is leading the charge with a $12 million ad rollout targeting senators in 13 key states.

At issue is a bill authored by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) that would require private gun sellers to run background checks on their buyers (as commercial dealers are required to do) and would ramp up the penalties on states that fail to submit records to the national background check system. None of that's especially controversial: Roughly 20 percent of guns are sold without any background checks. Recent polls have shown that more than 80 percent of gun owners and nearly 90 percent of the public at large support closing the loopholes that allow such sales. Even Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has threatened to filibuster "any legislation that will serve as a vehicle for any additional gun restrictions," recently voiced support for improving background checks.

In February, Schumer was in talks with NRA darling Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), hoping that he would cosponsor a bipartisan bill. But the negotiations broke down because Schumer wouldn't budge on requiring private gun sellers to keep records of their sales. Coburn countered that record keeping "cannot be used to enforce the law on the 250-300 million firearms in current circulation without the government knowing where all of them are on the date of enactment." In other words, Coburn worried that Schumer's bill would either be unenforceable or would lead to the national gun registry that gun advocates so fear. (The Brady Handgun Prevention Act of 1993, which established the federal background check system, currently requires that records of gun purchases be destroyed within 24 hours.)

[Read the full article]

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Rand Paul Threatens to Filibuster Gun Control Bill

—By Gavin Aronsen

| Tue Mar. 26, 2013 8:19 AM PDT

Fresh off his 13-hour drone-protesting filibuster of John Brennan's nomination as CIA director, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is threatening to do the same with the Senate's soon-to-be-debated gun control package, Politico reports. In a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), co-authored by fellow Brennan-blocking senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), Paul wrote, "We will oppose the motion to proceed to any legislation that will serve as a vehicle for any additional gun restrictions."

Paul's main gripe appears to be provisions drawn from Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-Calif.) proposed assault weapons ban, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote but was dropped from the initial gun control package that is expected to get a vote in early April. Reid has promised to allow Feinstein's proposals—which include a ban on 157 specific models of assault weapons as well as magazines of more than 10 rounds—to be voted on as amendments.

Politico reports:

Though they don't use the word "filibuster" in the letter, the conservatives are leaving no doubt that they would filibuster on an initial procedural question—the motion to proceed.

Lee staged a test vote on the issue during consideration of the Senate budget last week. He tried to amend a point of order against gun control legislation to the budget but fell short. It needed a three-fifths supermajority and failed 50-49, needing 60 votes to pass. But the final tally emboldened Lee, Paul and Cruz because they were so close to a majority and a filibuster takes just 41 votes to sustain.

Even if Rand and his colleagues drop the filibuster threat and the assault weapons ban does manage to make it into the package, it will stand little chance of passing in the Republican-controlled House. Most gun control advocates now consider a bipartisan expansion of background checks as their best opportunity for reforming gun laws.

The Assault Weapons Ban Ain't Dead Yet

—By Gavin Aronsen

| Thu Mar. 21, 2013 3:56 PM PDT

On Monday, Harry Reid told a disappointed Dianne Feinstein that her assault weapons ban, which passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote, wouldn't be in the gun control legislation Democrats are preparing for the full Senate because it had insufficient support to get past a filibuster. But Thursday night, Reid said in a statement, "I will ensure that a ban on assault weapons, limits to high-capacity magazines, and mental health provisions receive votes" as amendments to the bill.

The bill moving forward now will include the provisions on background checks, school safety, and gun trafficking, Reid said. The universal background check provision was also controversial, passing out of committee on a party-line vote, but Reid signaled that wasn't satisfactory. He is hopeful that negotiations during the upcoming Senate break will lead to a compromise that attracts bipartisan support for the measure, which has overwhelming support from the American public. "In order to be effective," Reid said, "any bill that passes the Senate must include background checks." West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin, a member of the National Rifle Association who expressed tepid support for gun control after Newtown, will reportedly lead the compromise effort.

Reid said the legislation will be added to the Senate calendar Thursday night to allow for a vote in early April. After opening debate, the assault weapons ban amendments will be introduced, in line with the Obama administration's continued commitment to keep it alive. But as Reid noted earlier in the week, even using "the most optimistic numbers," Feinstein's amendment had fewer than 40 votes.

Did Andrew Cuomo Just Backtrack on New York's Gun Ban?

—By Gavin Aronsen

| Wed Mar. 20, 2013 4:09 PM PDT

In late January, New York's Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law the nation's toughest assault weapons ban, the first gun control legislation passed in the wake of Newtown. But on Wednesday, Cuomo told reporters that he and legislative leaders would reverse one of the bill's most controversial measures, which limited magazines to no more than seven rounds, before the law goes into effect on April 15.

"There's no such thing as a seven-bullet magazine. That doesn't exist, so you really have no practical option," Cuomo said. Democrats plan to adjust the bill amid other legislative talks so that the new gun law will conform with existing state regulations banning magazines holding more than 10 rounds. Cuomo denied that the change would amount to a "rollback"; instead, he said, it's just a measure to clean up "ambiguities" and "grammatical errors" in the bill. It also appears to be a concession to ammunition manufacturers that potentially would've been hurt by the new law.

Still, the language on seven-round magazines won't be completely wiped from the bill. Cuomo said that while New Yorkers would still be able to buy 10-round magazines under the new assault weapons ban, they will face misdemeanor charges if they carry more than seven bullets in those magazines unless they're at a gun competition or shooting range. The president of the New York Rifle & Pistol Association, who has been preparing a lawsuit to overturn the law, told the AP that Cuomo's proposed revision will not change his plans to file suit.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Doctors Caught in Crossfire of Nutty Obama Conspiracy Theory

From South Carolina to Montana, legislators are pushing controversial "docs vs. Glocks" laws.

—By Dana Liebelson and Gavin Aronsen

| Wed Mar. 20, 2013 3:00 AM PDT

Vitaly Korovin/Shutterstock

South Carolina's youngest state representative, 24-year-old Joshua Putnam, recently proposed a bill that would ban most health care providers from asking whether their patients own guns. Its purpose is to fend off a nonexistent Obama plan to register all gun owners and possibly take away their weapons. "We don't want the federal government to come down and hold any Medicaid or Medicare dollars over our heads if doctors don't give up information about their patient's guns," says Putnam. "We want to protect physicians and we want to protect the citizens."

It's one among a recent wave of similar pro-gun legislation that doctors say could be detrimental to their patients. That pushback from medical professionals has made at least a few Republicans skittish: Three of the South Carolina bill's cosigners dropped off this month.

Introduced in January, Putnam's bill prohibits doctors from asking about a patient's firearm ownership. It makes exceptions for cases in which a patient is being treated for an injury related to a gun, has a history of mental health issues, or in which there is evidence of child or adult abuse. Putnam says the bill is modeled on an NRA-backed amendment that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) tried but ultimately failed to add on to Obamacare in 2010, which aimed to assuage gun-owners' fears that the administration would use the health care law to collect information about gun owners and use it against them.

But in states including South Carolina, Florida, Missouri, Montana, West Virginia and Oklahoma, this type of legislation has seen some momentum since the Newtown massacre. Fifty-four Republican state representatives (and zero Democrats) have signed on to Putnam's bill, even though it's based on a debunked conspiracy theory.

[Read the full article]