Democratic Senate hopefuls take cautious tack on assault weapons ban

Democratic Senate candidates in the year’s most competitive races are treading lightly on an issue that has the backing of the party’s top officials: an assault weapons ban.

From Pennsylvania to Arizona, only a handful of Democratic Senate candidates have homed in on calls for reinstating the long-expired federal ban on so-called assault weapons in the wake of the mass shooting at an Uvalde, Texas, elementary school that left 21 people — including 19 children — dead. 

Most candidates have walked a finer line, urging the Senate to take up other measures, like expanded background checks for gun purchases and red flag laws, which in most cases would allow law enforcement officials to temporarily seize firearms from individuals who are seen as a threat to themselves or others. 

The reluctance to openly advocate for a new ban on assault-style weapons illustrates how the issue has become a political third rail for battleground-state Democrats in an already difficult election year for the party. 

Republicans need to net just five seats in the House and one in the Senate to recapture their congressional majorities, and they have already attacked Democrats relentlessly for months over everything from skyrocketing inflation to rising crime rates.

“I think a lot of these candidates are making a calculated decision to hang back and stick with the legislation that’s already on the table because they know what’s coming if they get behind the assault weapons ban,” one national Democratic strategist said. “The talking point from Republicans is going to be: ‘the Dems want to ban guns. Period.’ ”

“It’s good policy and I think most of them probably support it,” the strategist added. “But I don’t know if it’s something they’re going to hang their campaign on.”

Of the Democratic incumbents facing the toughest reelection bids of the 2022 midterms, only two — Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) — have signed on to a bill introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that would prohibit the sale, transfer, manufacture or possession of assault-style weapons.

Two other vulnerable Democrats — Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) — haven’t done so. 

A campaign spokesperson noted that Kelly, a former astronaut who established himself as one of the country’s most prominent gun safety advocates following the near-fatal shooting of his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), in 2011, has “previously expressed support for banning assault weapons.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.), the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Senate nod in Florida and a former Orlando police chief, is a co-sponsor of the House’s version of Feinstein’s bill.

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic Senate nominee in the Keystone State, has said that he would support an assault weapons ban if elected this year, releasing a statement in the aftermath of the Uvalde shooting calling for a host of new gun control policies.

“Enough is enough. It’s long past time for Congress to act,” Fetterman said. “If I’m your next U.S. Senator, I would support common-sense reform like universal background checks for all gun sales and a ban on military-grade assault weapons and high capacity magazines.”

Another Democratic Senate hopeful, Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry, also lists a call for an assault weapons ban on his campaign platform. Likewise, Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, who is also seeking the Democratic Senate nomination in Wisconsin, has also called for a ban. 

Others, however, have been more careful in their approach to the question.

In a recent interview with the Wisconsin public affairs show “For the Record,” Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, one of the leading candidates in his state’s Democratic Senate primary, said “weapons of war shouldn’t be as easily accessible as they are.”

Barnes, a former state representative, previously introduced a bill in the state Assembly in 2013 that would have effectively banned assault weapons. A spokesperson for Barnes’ campaign noted that he does, in fact, support an assault weapons ban.

Another candidate in the Wisconsin Democratic Senate primary, state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, has thrown her support behind “common sense” gun control and safety legislation in the wake of the Uvalde shooting, but hasn’t yet endorsed an outright ban on assault weapons.

Likewise, Cheri Beasley, the Democratic Senate nominee in North Carolina, told the Charlotte Observer that combat-style weapons should be kept “off our streets,” but did not say whether such firearms should be banned altogether.

In Ohio, Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic Senate nominee, expressed frustration over stalled gun control and safety legislation in the Senate, but made no mention of a federal assault weapons ban.

The reluctance to call for an outright ban on assault style weapons, like the AR-15-style rifle used to carry out the mass shooting in Uvalde as well as other attacks, underscores a rift between Democrats running for some of the most hotly contested Senate seats and the party’s two most prominent figures, President Biden and Vice President Harris.

Both have re-upped calls for an assault weapons prohibition in recent weeks as a spate of mass shootings have refocused the national conversation on gun control and safety. Speaking to reporters on Monday, Biden said that it “makes no sense to be able to purchase something that can fire up to 300 rounds,” before pointing to the success of a 1994 bill that kicked off a 10-year ban on assault-style weapons.

“I know that it makes no sense to be able to purchase something that can fire up to 300 rounds,” he said. “And I know what happened when we had rational action before, back in — when the crime bill was — the law that got passed. It did significantly cut down mass murders.” 

For her part, Harris has been even more direct in calling for a new assault weapons ban, broaching the topic during a funeral service over the weekend for the victims of another mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y. 

“We are not sitting around waiting to figure out what the solution looks like,” she said. “We know what works on this. It includes — let’s have an assault weapons ban.”  

Of course, the previous assault weapons ban, which also included a prohibition on certain high-capacity magazines, also brings up uncomfortable political memories for Democrats. After the bill was signed into law in 1994, Democrats suffered some of their biggest-ever electoral defeats in that year’s midterm elections, with Republicans winning unified control of Congress for the first time since 1952.

Still, there are signs that the political tides may be turning. 

A Morning Consult-Politico poll conducted in the immediate aftermath of the shooting in Uvalde found that roughly two-thirds of U.S. voters — 67 percent — support a ban on assault-style weapons, including 49 percent of Republicans. Slightly more voters — 69 percent — support prohibiting high-capacity ammunition magazines.

But even among Democratic Senate hopefuls who have expressed support for an assault weapons ban, it’s not the main focus. Instead, they have more aggressively called for Congress to approve proposals to expand background checks or incentivize states to establish red flag laws, arguing that such measures stand a better chance of winning some GOP support.

“We have a direct obligation to do what we can, when we can. And I believe that those are two pieces of legislation that have overwhelming public support,” Demings said during an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “We can get it done, if the Senate has the political will to do it.”

The focus on other gun control measures may be as practical as it is political, born out of the notion that any attempt to ban assault-style weapons would almost certainly face stiff Republican opposition. 

In a separate appearance on “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who emerged as one of the Senate’s most vocal gun control advocates after the deadly mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, said that he was intent on passing some sort of legislation, even if it falls short of an outright assault weapons ban.

“Republicans are not willing to support everything that I support, like banning assault weapons,” Murphy, who’s not up for reelection this year, said. “But I really think that we could pass something that saves lives and breaks this logjam that we’ve had for 30 years.”

Jon Reinish, a Democratic strategist, said that Democrats would be wise to embrace a new assault weapons ban. For one, he said, the country is “in a very different time” than it was in 1994 when the first ban was enacted.

Perhaps more importantly, he argued, Democratic candidates are in need of a message that can animate their voters in an otherwise bleak midterm election year. 

“Anyone who is going to vote against you for banning AR-15s was never going to vote for you in the first place. And the sooner Democrats realize that and take popular and persuasive positions, we’ll be in a way better place this election cycle,” Reinish said. 

“I think it’s a casualty of overall Democratic malaise and I think it’s an overall casualty of Democrats being scared of their own shadows.” 

Editor’s note: This story was updated on June 2 to note Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes’s past position on an assault weapons ban.