A podium-pounding burst of indignation at the White House may have been the scene-stealing highlight of actor Matthew McConaughey’s gun-control tour of Washington this week.
But that impassioned appearance before the press corps overshadowed other stops on his itinerary that speak to the detail-laden drudgery of passing a gun bill.
The process is now plodding ahead in the U.S. Congress, where the celebrity son of grief-stricken Uvalde, Texas, has also been holding meetings.
Finally, McConaughey sat for an interview with the one political opinion-maker that may hold more power than any other in shaping the outcome of the current gun debate: Fox News.
That’s because the action right now is in the U.S. Senate, a chamber synonymous with inaction. A gun bill can only pass if it gets the votes of 10 Republicans, and their voters disproportionately watch Fox.
WATCH | Actor Matthew McConaughey visits Washington, D.C., to advocate for gun reform:
Matthew McConaughey calls for gun control
1 day ago
Duration 2:23
Actor Matthew McConaughey speaks about the child victims of the school shooting in his hometown, Uvalde, Texas, and appeals for gun control measures, after a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden
The Senate has notoriously demanding procedures that require a 60 per cent vote to pass bills, and it almost never happens on big, controversial issues.
Except this time, maybe, it might.
Hope for a deal
Don’t expect a nation-altering gun overhaul. The U.S. won’t suddenly become Sweden. But a small, bipartisan circle of senators hopes to reach a preliminary agreement by weekend on elements for a modest gun bill.
The elements potentially include expanded background checks; incentives for state red-flag laws; closer tracking of violent minors; and funding for school security and mental health.
The Democrat leading the talks comes from a state that suffered its own school massacre, in Newtown, Conn., in 2012.
Chris Murphy says he’s had his heart broken before by the U.S. Congress’s failure to make progress on gun reform and he can’t bear another setback.
“The country’s not going to accept nothing as the answer,” the Connecticut Democrat told a student rally Monday in Washington.
The Democrat leading gun talks in the Senate, Sen. Chris Murphy, right, met President Joe Biden on Tuesday at the White House to update him on the state of negotiations. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
The Republicans sound optimistic, too. Their leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, says an agreement could be within reach: “I hope that’ll be sooner rather than later.”
The potential specifics of a deal remain murky, as are its chances of passing into law, but here’s what we know based on what the negotiators are saying.
Scope of the deal: limited
At best, any deal will only chip away at the heaping monolith that is the U.S. murder rate, which most research says is at least partly connected to the country’s abundance of guns.
To put it into numerical perspective, the U.S. homicide rate is about 2.5 to 3.6 times Canada’s, depending on which data set you’re consulting. Put another way, that’s 250 to 360 per cent of Canada’s rate.
One academic expert on gun policy effects on gun crime says he’d be thrilled if congressional action trimmed gun deaths by 10 per cent. It wouldn’t change the U.S.’s status atop developed countries in gun deaths, with 45,000 homicides and suicides in 2020, as gun fatalities surpassed car fatalities.
But it would save thousands of lives per year.
“That’s significant,” said John Donohue of Stanford University. “You’re talking about maybe 4,500 lives saved.”
Whether Congress gets anywhere close is a different story.
The Rand Corporation think-tank has a calculator to help gauge the potential effects of different gun changes.
It’s based on a survey of 173 gun-policy experts. They offered predictions about the effect of different policies, and the findings are broken into two separate categories: a low-end estimate from the 26 experts skeptical of gun control and a high-end estimate from the other 147.
Under the most drastic scenario, where U.S. lawmakers enacted every policy on Rand’s list — including major gun reforms, like an assault-weapons ban — the calculator estimates U.S. homicides would fall between one-fifth and one-half.
That would still leave the U.S. with a higher murder rate than other developed countries, but the gap would be significantly or almost totally narrowed.
That is, of course, a purely hypothetical exercise. The so-called assault-weapons ban isn’t happening, at least not in this Congress.
Republicans say they hope for a gun deal soon. But the top Republican negotiator, senior Texas Sen. John Cornyn, seen here earlier this year, said guns are a polarizing issue and negotiations aren’t easy. (Jon Cherry/Reuters)
So, back here on legislative Planet Earth, American lawmakers are looking at more targeted measures designed to get conservative votes in the Senate.
Background checks: Adjustments possible
Lawmakers are discussing changes to the 24-year-old national background-checks system.
One likely example: Adding juvenile violent-crime records to the records system, or at least having that juvenile record last a few years after the minor’s 18th birthday.
North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said the current system won’t include, for example, the 44,000 juvenile arrests for violent crime in 2019.
“None of that is in a background check today,” said Tillis, one of the lawmakers in the talks. “That’s a lot to check on.”
There’s also talk about closing a loophole in the background-check system, which now works for sales in stores but not for private sellers and gun shows.
The Rand Corporation survey predicted the impact of universal background checks would range from nothing to a five per cent homicide reduction per year.
Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican leading the talks for his party, said he believed every gun seller should do a background check.
Mourners pay respects at a memorial for the 21 killed in the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. (Lucas Boland/USA Today/Reuters)
But don’t expect much on this front.
In a CNN interview over the weekend, the Democrat Murphy downplayed expectations about the scope of the background-check change and said it would not result in universal detailed checks.
Red-flag laws: Potential incentives for states
Red-flag laws could have a more dramatic effect.
Different versions of these laws already exist in 19 states, and Rand’s experts said that homicide rates would drop several percentage points if these and other violence-related prohibitions were extended nationally.
A red-flag law allows someone — a family member, loved one or law enforcement — to request that a court temporarily seize weapons from a violence-prone individual.
The negotiators in Washington are talking about creating financial incentives to help states set up or improve their existing red-flag laws.
But these laws don’t always work.
Take the racist shooting last month in Buffalo. New York State has a red-flag law. The shooter had even been brought in for a police-mandated psychiatric evaluation after making cryptic threats at school about plans involving murder and suicide. But authorities never applied for a gun restriction in his case.
This issue could become the hottest flashpoint for lawmakers.
We’ve already seen indications Republican negotiators might need to tread carefully to avoid angering their base — those Fox News viewers McConaughey was addressing.
Actor Matthew McConaughey and his wife, Camila Alves McConaughey, visited Congress on Tuesday and he also sat for an interview with Fox News, in an effort to encourage a bipartisan deal. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
Far-right politicians like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Matt Gaetz have excoriated colleagues for thinking of backing red-flag laws, calling them unconstitutional and unjust.
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said he fears such laws could be abused and people targeted would have little standing to defend their Second Amendment rights.
Gaetz fumed that Republican voters could have their guns taken away: “You betray your voters [if you back this],” Gaetz warned colleagues. “You are a traitor to the constitution. … These [laws] will be abused.”
After the 2018 Parkland school massacre, Florida passed it under a Republican legislature and it was signed by a Republican governor, Rick Scott, now a U.S. senator.
Minimum age requirement a long shot
Democrats hoped to increase the minimum age to purchase an AR-15 rifle to 21; that’s already the minimum to purchase a handgun under a half-century old law.
Extending the rule to rifles would reduce homicides up to five per cent, according to the Rand expert survey.
It doesn’t sound like it’s happening.
When asked why that idea appears doomed, Cornyn, the Texas Republican, said some courts have questioned its constitutionality and said it would be a tough sell in Congress.
“This is a big, diverse country,” Cornyn told reporters Monday. “And there are differences — on this [guns] issue in particular and it just takes time to build consensus.”
Republicans are especially keen on getting other, non-gun provisions into a bill: notably funding for mental health and for school security.
Donohue, the Stanford analyst, is worried. While polls say the public wants change, he said there’s a recurring pattern after horrific massacres.
National politicians talk about doing something, talks drag on, they stall, the public’s attention drifts elsewhere and nothing happens, at least not at the national level. Any gun action lately has fallen to the states.
Donohue fears this might just be a Republican stalling tactic. But he’s holding out hope.
“I still would like to see us move in the right direction, rather than continuing in the wrong direction, as we’ve been doing for a while now.”
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
