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WASHINGTON — The top Democratic negotiator of a package of gun bills prompted by a recent mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, said Monday he hopes to reach a deal with his Republican counterparts this week.
“My hope is that we are able to come to an agreement by the end of the week,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told NBC News on Monday. “The discussions have been really positive. I still am hopeful we’ll be able to get a product.”
“My goal — I can’t say this is a collective goal — my goal is to have an agreement by the end of this week. And I don’t think that’s an unrealistic goal,” he said, adding that it may be more of an “outline” than detailed legislative text.
Murphy’s comments came hours before he was set to sit down in a face-to-face meeting in the Capitol with a handful of key negotiators: Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the leading Republican negotiator, as well as Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C.
“We’re meeting — working over dinner tonight. And I think we’re making progress,” Cornyn said in an interview Monday. “We’ve been talking and exchanging text messages.”
Cornyn also said an agreement could be reached this week, adding that negotiators “talked about a framework earlier, and I think we’re trying to figure out how to fill in the details.”
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During the week after Memorial Day while Congress was on recess, various groups of senators negotiated the different pieces of the gun package by phone and in virtual Zoom meetings.
Murphy characterized the current bipartisan talks as “more advanced than a week ago” and said the discussions still center on four pillars that have been discussed in the past: expanded background checks, red flag laws, mental health and school security.
“Normally on this issue, two weeks into negotiations, they’re falling apart or they’re non-existent,” Murphy added. “I think everyday there is more seriousness about getting a product that we can present to our caucuses.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has blessed the negotiations and backed the goal of an agreement this week.
“We’re trying to get a bipartisan outcome here that makes a difference,” he told reporters on Monday. “And hopefully, sometime this week, we’ll come together.”
The recent spate of gun violence — from Buffalo, New York, to Uvalde, Texas to a weekend shooting in Philadelphia — appears to be moving some lawmakers toward stricter rules.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., a key centrist from a rural pro-gun state, is now supportive of raising the minimum age to buy a semi-automatic rifle from 18 to 21, his spokesperson said Monday.
“There’s no red lines. We’ve got to do something. We’ve got to start bringing what we call ‘gun sense’ into America,” Manchin told reporters.
But that provision is unlikely to be in a Senate package, as it faces Republican opposition and likely lacks the necessary 60 votes to defeat a filibuster.
Republicans, wary of offending pro-gun voters who make up a portion of their base, have emphasized that the problems they’re trying to address are mental health and school safety.
To that end, Murphy sought to extend a rhetorical olive branch to Republican lawmakers, categorizing some policies in the negotiations that are aimed at keeping guns away from dangerous people under the umbrella of mental health.
“When you are talking about red flag laws and background checks, you are talking about mental health,” Murphy said in the interview. “We’re talking about keeping guns out of the hands of people with criminal records but also people with significant histories of mental health.”
