Senator Jeff Flake, the freshman Republican from Arizona, announced today that he would not support the bill to expand background checks for gun buyers. His opposition isn't surprising — only three or four Republicans have come out in full support. But his reasoning, if you can call it that, illuminates why the bill is in such trouble.
Mr. Flake, writing on his Facebook page, said he opposed the bill because it would extend background checks "to almost all private transfers, including between friends and neighbors," if an ad for the gun sale were made public. "It would likely even extend to message boards, like the one in an office kitchen," he wrote.
It's not hard to show how wrong this claim is from a legal standpoint. The bill states that background checks are required when a sale takes place at a gun show or is announced in "an advertisement, posting, display or other listing on the Internet or in a publication." An index card tacked to a bulletin board clearly doesn't count.
It's also not hard to show how wrong the claim is from the standpoint of safety. Let's say the bill did require background checks for all private sales: What exactly would be so wrong with that? The vast majority of the sales would still take place, and would only violate the law if the buyer turned out to be a convicted criminal or seriously mentally ill. Almost all Americans support that idea, with the exception of those on the fringe who consider such an inconvenience to be an assault on the Second Amendment and the foundations of American society.
But neither of these arguments really matter. Like many lawmakers who are opposing the Manchin-Toomey amendment for background checks, Mr. Flake needed an excuse to say no, so he simply invented one.
Others have claimed the bill would lead to a national gun registry, even though Senators Manchin and Toomey included language explicitly (and unnecessarily) making that possibility illegal. Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma insists the bill would raise taxes on guns. The most ridiculous argument of all — one that suggests a proponent like Marco Rubio is far from ready for a presidential run — is that background checks would be ineffective at stopping criminals. Using that logic, Mr. Rubio should oppose all other criminal laws, too.
Many lawmakers of both parties would rather hide behind these flimsy excuses than offend the gun lobby and the credulous voters who follow it, putting passage of Manchin-Toomey in serious doubt.
Mr. Flake, in particular, has also cost himself a valuable supporter. Few lawmakers spent more time with Gabby Giffords when she was shot than Mr. Flake, her fellow Arizonan, and their friendship extended over the party line. But today Mark Kelly, Ms. Giffords' husband, accused Mr. Flake of "just looking for a reason to get to no," and promised to try to unseat him if he votes against the bill.
"Friendship is one thing," Mr. Kelly said. "Saving people's lives — especially first-graders — is another."
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