Republican Texas Senator John Cornyn and Democratic Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy will hold a video conference call Tuesday to try to craft gun control legislature that could gain bipartisan support for passage, CBS News reports.
The bipartisan effort echoes attempts by Democratic West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Republican Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey after the Sandy Hook shootings a decade ago. That bill got a 54-46 vote in the Senate in April 2013, but failed to clear the 60-vote threshold to defeat a filibuster.
Tuesday’s call is a conference call, and staff for the two Senators declined to state if other members of Congress would be joining the call, nor if there was a predetermined agenda for the call. Murphy has stated that he supports things, like a complete ban on assault rifles, that the GOP Senators won’t support.
“But I really think that we could pass something that saves lives and breaks this logjam that we’ve had for 30 years, proving to Republicans that if you vote to tighten the nation’s gun laws, the sky doesn’t fall for you politically, in fact, you probably will get a lot of new additional supporters,” Murphy said on Face the Nation. “So red flag laws are on the table. Background checks, expansion and on the table, as well as things like safe storage of guns. I think we can get something done, but we don’t have a lot of time.”