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.

John McCain Flashback: The Gun-Show Loophole is "Wrong"

—By Gavin Aronsen

| Tue Apr. 2, 2013 1:39 PM PDT

At the Washington Post, Greg Sargent takes a look at Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) previous support of gun control measures, which included ads he cut in October 2000 in support of successful ballot initiatives in Colorado and Oregon to close gun-show loopholes on background checks.

Behind the scenes of Senate Democrats' efforts to strike a compromise on background checks, McCain is seen as a potential key ally who could make a bipartisan bill more tenable for House Republicans.

"I'm John McCain with some straight talk," McCain says in the ad. "Convicted felons have been able to buy and sell thousands of guns at gun shows because of a loophole in the law. Many were later used in crimes. That's wrong."

So far, Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) is the only Senate Republican to publicly express support for legislation that would require private sellers to run background checks. Along with McCain, senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.) are seen as the best bets for a broader bipartisan compromise. Talks between Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who authored the original background check bill that cleared the Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote, and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) fell apart in February. Coburn, however, says he is still open to a limited expansion of the current law.

Sargent points out how McCain's moderate past on gun control speaks to just how far to the right the debate has since lurched:

What's particularly interesting here is that McCain was staking out what was then the moderate middle ground. At the time, the left pole of the gun control debate was defined partly by opposition to the idea of a gun ownership right, with some arguing that it only existed on Constitutional grounds in the context of militia membership. McCain's position put him squarely in the middle between gun control groups and gun rights forces.

Since then, the Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller — which struck down D.C.'s handgun ban — upheld a Constitutional right to gun ownership for traditionally lawful purposes. With that Supreme Court precedent set, it should theoretically be even easier for Republicans to accept the middle ground position of universal background checks, which don’t threaten rights that are now enshrined by the Court. But neither McCain nor any other Republican Senator (except for Mark Kirk) has so far proven willing to take the step McCain did back in 2000, underscoring how far to the right the debate remains, even in the wake of the massacre of 20 children.

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UN Adopts Historic Arms Trade Treaty Despite NRA Opposition

The United States Senate is not expected to approve it, however.

—By Gavin Aronsen

| Tue Apr. 2, 2013 11:58 AM PDT

After more than a decade of efforts to regulate the $70 billion international arms trade, the United Nations' General Assembly on Tuesday adopted the Arms Trade Treaty despite opposition from human-rights abusers around the world and the United States gun lobby.

Contrary to the rhetoric from the National Rifle Association and other opponents, the treaty doesn't dictate domestic gun laws in member countries. It requires signatories to establish controls on the import and export of conventional arms including tanks, missile launchers, fully automatic assault rifles, and other weapons of war. Many countries, including the United States, already have laws regulating such exports, but before the treaty's passage on Tuesday there had never been an accord setting international standards.

"It's a big victory for the human rights community," Frank Jannuzi, a deputy executive director with Amnesty International USA, told Mother Jones. "It shows that it can fight back against the gun lobby." Amnesty has spent nearly two decades working with Oxfam International and other human rights organizations to get international arms trade regulations in place.

The NRA and other gun groups strongly opposed the treaty, capitalizing on conservative myths that it would infringe on Second Amendment rights by undermining the country's sovereignty. But the gun lobby's real opposition to the treaty is probably economics. The US is the world's leading arms exporter, and gun dealers aren't eager to be required to report weapons exports that may wind up in the hands of warlords or terrorists overseas.

GOP senators like Rand Paul (Ky.) are still repeating the false claim that abiding by the treaty would lead to an international registry of American gun owners and "full-scale gun CONFISCATION." Conservatives have also argued that the treaty violates the Second Amendment by recognizing the rights of governments, but not their citizens, to self-defense, even though it has no international policing mechanism and explicitly recognizes the "inherent right of all States to individual or collective self-defence."

Although the Obama administration supports the Arms Trade Treaty, US law stipulates that international treaties must be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. There's no chance that will happen. In March, the Senate approved a budget amendment to "uphold Second Amendment rights and prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty."

[Read the full article]

Obama on Gun Violence: "Shame on Us If We've Forgotten"

—By Gavin Aronsen

| Thu Mar. 28, 2013 10:33 AM PDT

Barack Obama and Joe Biden attend an event in January to discuss proposals to reduce gun violence.

With the Senate continuing its attempts to reach a bipartisan compromise on a gun-control package, President Barack Obama held a press conference at the White House Thursday morning urging strong action.

Surrounded by mothers "whose children were killed as recently as 35 days ago," Obama touted the work of Vice President Joe Biden's gun violence task force, which produced 23 executive actions aimed at reducing gun violence. The task force also recommended that Congress pass a package of new laws that includes universal background checks, a new assault weapons ban, and a ban on high-capacity magazines.

Obama mentioned recent polls that show as many as 90 percent of Americans support universal background checks. "How often do 90 percent of Americans agree on anything?" he asked, eliciting a laugh from Biden, who stood beside him. "It never happens!"

"None of these ideas should be controversial," Obama continued. "What we're proposing is not radical. We're not taking away anybody's gun rights."

Gun advocates, of course, see things differently. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has promised to allow the Senate to vote on the assault weapons ban introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) as an amendment, after leaving it out of the main gun-control package in fear that it would prevent the larger bill from passing. Pro-gun Republicans have threatened to filibuster any bill they think "will serve as a vehicle for any additional gun restrictions," and there is limited bipartisan support for strengthening background checks.

Obama's conference was a brief, emotional appeal for common-sense gun reforms. He was introduced by Katerina Rodgaard of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a mother and dance instructor whose former student Reema Samaha was one of the 32 people killed by a gunman in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. Families of Newtown victims also sat in the audience.

After the nation's recent string of mass shootings, "I felt it was no longer safe to raise a family in America," Rodgaard told the crowd.

While there will always be gun violence, Obama said, "we can make a difference." He mentioned a recent article that suggested Washington is missing its opportunity to seriously reform gun laws as the public's memory of Newtown fades away.

"Let me tell you, the people here don't forget," Obama said. "Shame on us if we've forgotten."

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]

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.