From Sandy Hook to Buffalo: Ten years of failure on gun control

Gabrielle Giffords huddled with Vice President Joe Biden in his private office just off the Senate floor on an April Wednesday in 2013, watching the stunning defeat of a bill to expand background checks to most gun sales.Giffords — a former Democratic lawmaker who still had difficulty speaking after being shot in the head in 2011 during an event in her Arizona district — was equal parts furious and devastated as she watched 46 of her former colleagues, including five Democratic senators, vote against the gun-control measure informally known as Manchin-Toomey.The gun bill had emerged in the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., just four months prior — a massacre that left 20 children and six adults dead. Most Republicans remain opposed to any proposed changes, arguing that new restrictions would have little impact on the frequency of mass shootings and would impinge on Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms.Returning from Buffalo in the aftermath of the latest massacre, Biden said there was “not much on executive action” that he could carry out on gun control and, referring to the 1994 assault weapons ban, said, “I’ve got to convince the Congress that we should go back to what I passed years ago.”He also acknowledged the political head winds he was still facing, nearly a decade after Sandy Hook.“The answer is going to be very difficult,” Biden added before boarding Air Force One to fly back to Washington. He said Biden and his team “were convening regular meetings to scour every nook and cranny of the federal code to figure out what they could do with their pen, and they did everything they could possibly think of — but that’s not that much.”By mid-January, Biden produced a comprehensive road map for combating gun violence, and Obama announced 23 executive actions — including directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research the causes of gun violence; launching a nationwide responsible gun ownership campaign; providing law enforcement, first responders and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations; and launching a national discussion about mental health.On Capitol Hill, Manchin — a proud gun owner who had grown up around firearms in West Virginia — found himself deeply moved by the shooting and was looking for a Republican partner to help draft a bipartisan gun bill.After the shock fades, fear rises in the aftermath of the Buffalo shootingOn Valentine’s Day 2013, Manchin and Toomey flew together to Pittsburgh for an energy conference, and the two senators from neighboring states became friendly after chatting during the flight.A month later, after running into Toomey at Washington’s Union Station, Manchin broached the idea of teaming up on a gun deal and returned to Capitol Hill enthused. “It would have been symbolic, in that it would have opened the door to do something on guns going forward.”Several people involved in the discussions at the time said Biden was fairly removed from the Manchin-Toomey proposal snaking its way through the Capitol.“I don’t recall him being involved at all,” Fallon said, saying that similar to the issue of immigration, the Obama-Biden administration’s approach was, “Let the lawmakers do their thing and see what they come up with.”Part of that was by design, allies said, because the White House feared that too much Capitol Hill involvement by Obama or Biden would spook Republicans.Still, some were frustrated with what they viewed as Biden’s inaction.“The Biden role was a joke,” said a former Democratic Senate aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share a candid opinion. “We’ve got to stop this nonsense.”But the next day, Trump hosted the NRA’s top lobbyist in the Oval Office — a meeting both men later described on Twitter as “great” — and all post-Parkland momentum at the administration level seemed to end.Kris Brown, the president of Brady, a gun violence prevention organization, remembers talking with Democratic senators at the time, thinking that perhaps Trump and his team would help with federal legislation.The group, Brown said, thought that “maybe this is an opportunity for us — and then it lasted all of 24 hours.”After the Buffalo shooting, Manchin again called on Congress to take up his bipartisan background checks deal from nearly a decade ago.“If you can’t pass Manchin-Toomey, how are you going to get enough votes for anything else?” Manchin told reporters.But even that seems unlikely.In an interview with The Washington Post, Toomey said that neither Biden nor his staff has contacted the senator about working on gun legislation.