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WASHINGTON – California representative Eric Swalwell may have left the presidential race, but his signing problem is still on the main ballot.
After the shooting in El Paso and Dayton earlier this month, Swalwell's proposal for the compulsory surrender of all assault-style weapons was accepted by the congressman who represented the border town of Texas. former Beto representative O 'Rourke – which gives the idea a maximum value. -profile platform for the moment.
Swalwell has actively advised presidential candidates to follow his example by telling them that "mothers would support you", even as critics denounce this project of confiscating a firearm that would turn ordinary Americans into criminals.
"If you want to ban future sales, I actually think intuitively that you're there already," said Swalwell. "You recognize that these are weapons that we can not have in our communities, and the next step should not be so difficult, to get those that are already available."
This week, a group led by survivors of the Parkland shootout unveiled a plan that included the same concept – siding with more common proposals that would only prohibit the future sale of affected firearms.
Democratic candidates and prominent gun groups, however, are still generally reluctant to accept the idea. Some, like former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, responded by calling for buyout programs to be voluntary. Until recently, it was difficult to find nationally known politicians who claimed that firearms owners should be forced to surrender their weapons, a point that is equally praised. Australia for applying a similar law.
Instead, the party is largely focused on adopting legislation enjoying bipartisan support in Congress, such as a universal background check and red flag laws. "who would remove firearms from those who were considered a danger to themselves or to others. The background check on background checks is co-authored by Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat who, in some advertisements, introduces a law he does not like.
But this year, the conversation traces a new territory.
The frequent mass shootings, the persistent inaction in Congress and a very competitive presidential field have contributed to the race for new ideas or the revitalization of old ideas abandoned after opposition from landowners. ;fire arms.
"I think that they have changed dramatically, both in terms of priority given to candidates over 2016 or 2012 or 2008, but also in terms of boldness of these ideas," said Igor Volsky, founder of the Guns Down America Action Fund, which advocates reducing the total number of guns in America.
And as the years have gone by without Congress becoming a breakthrough – Trump has repeatedly examined the background check legislation and finally seems to be backing away – politicians and activists worry less and less about whether Republicans will accept their proposals or if opposition from gun defense groups.
"Obviously, what we have seen is that this approach has failed, which is why our policy has always failed – and there is no point on the other side to do anything," he said. said Volsky.
In addition to mandatory redemptions that O & # Rourke is defending, other 2020 Democrat candidates have also solicited proposals to stand out. This week, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren called for an increase in the tax on firearms and ammunition by four and four times. New Jersey senator Cory Booker has made it mandatory to hold a federal license to buy a firearm, and others, such as O'Rourke, Warren and South Bend, Indiana, the mayor Pete Buttigieg, have adopted similar plans.
"You have 20 Democratic presidential candidates, each trying to seek more anti-arms rights than others for their base, so they must have different proposals," said Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Pro-Gun Second Amendment Foundation. . "It's more heated. It's more in your head.
This new push is also a demographic change within the party. The current majority of the Democratic House is built on suburban swivel seats, where award-winning candidates have often supported the new gun laws in their campaigns. Nearly 200 Democrats in the House co-sponsor a bill to ban assault weapons, which recruited its first Republican supporter this week in New York representative Peter King.
At the same time, gun safety activists and experts have warned that some of the policy proposals tabled by Democrats this year are more well-established ideas than others.
"I would not put compulsory licenses and buyouts in one basket," said Peter Ambler, executive director of Giffords, a gun control group founded after Rep's injury. Arizona, Gabby Giffords, and the killing of six other people. a constituent meeting in Tucson.
While there is no recent precedent for a mandatory assault rifle program, Ambler said, gun licenses are the norm in many places.
More than a dozen states, including North Carolina and Nebraska, already have various licensing requirements for firearms owners, which requires permits and audits of firearms owners. antecedents before certain firearm purchases. Former President Bill Clinton has called for a licensing program for handguns in every state in his latest State of the Union address, less than a year after the shooting. in a school in Columbine, Colorado.
These requirements have grown in recent years, as academics have suggested that they could be much more effective than simply extending background checks. A study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that gun homicides had decreased by 40% and gun suicides by 15% in Connecticut after the state enacted a law on permits in 1995, while Missouri had recorded a 25% increase in firearm homicides and 16% suicides after the repeal of a similar law in 2007.
"If you want to avoid firearms to high-risk people, you have to determine who they are when selling the weapon, but it seems like a license is the way the most effective way to do that, "said Jon Vernick, co-director of the center for gun policy and research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told NBC News.
Experts have expressed concerns about how to implement proposals such as compulsory buyouts forcing firearm owners to sell their assault-type weapons, which could amount to up to $ 15 million. More than 300 million privately-owned firearms in the United States, according to a National Rifle Association Report.
Swalwell says his plan would facilitate compliance by allowing owners to keep their weapons when they stored them in a shooting range or hunting club.
Warren, along with Senator Bernie Sanders, proposed an approach backed by security groups such as Giffords, which would regulate assault weapons in the same way as machine guns, which are rarely associated with crime. Machine guns are no longer allowed to be manufactured, but the law prohibits them from retaining acquired rights in existing owners as long as the owners have registered their weapons and paid a fee of $ 200.
Ambler, executive director of Giffords, said he could "understand with this outbreak of mass shootings from where the desire comes" from a mandatory buyout plan. But he added that the regulation of property "would use an existing policy framework" and would be simpler to achieve as a result.
But Second Amendment activists claimed that many firearms owners would refuse to comply with existing arms prohibitions, including mandatory buy-backs or obligations they register, making it impossible to implement them without generating new conflicts with the police.
Jon Caldara, president of the libertarian Independence Institute, protested a Boulder (Colorado) law banning assault weapons and asking existing gun owners to show the police the proof of their previous purchase in order to keep their existing stocks. As part of his campaign against the new rules, he deliberately refused to comply and predicted that gun owners would similarly respond to national efforts to surrender their guns.
"The euphemism used for the confiscation of firearms is simply delicious," he said. "What you do is turn good guys into criminals."
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