Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday refused to rule out a vote on gun-control legislation in the next Congress.
The highest-ranking elected Republican lawmaker said that he would take the recommendations of a commission led by Vice President Joe Biden on gun control “under advisement.”
{mosads}”When the vice president’s recommendations come forward, we’ll certainly take them into consideration,” Boehner told reporters gathered at a press conference in the Capitol.
On Wednesday, President Obama tapped Biden to head a commission tasked with developing legislation to prevent attacks like the Newtown, Conn., school shooting last week, in which 26 people were killed by an armed attacker at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Pressed on whether that meant he was, in fact, “open” to considering gun-control measures on the House floor, Boehner responded “we’ll look at Vice President Biden’s commission’s recommendations and take it under advisement.”
Earlier this week, Boehner told his conference that Republicans “need to have a discussion” on guns.
Speaking to his troops at a closed-door meeting in the Capitol on Tuesday, Boehner was mindful of conservatives’ traditional opposition to new gun restrictions, emphasizing that Republicans wouldn’t do “anything knee-jerk,” according to a lawmaker in the room.
But the Speaker also said he wants to “de-politicize” the issue of gun violence, which has been thrust into the national spotlight following the murder of 27 people, including the gunman’s mother and 20 young children, in Newtown last Friday.
Since the massacre, Obama and a long list of congressional Democrats have urged tougher gun laws — including reinstatement of the assault-weapons ban and the elimination of the “gun show loophole” — but GOP leaders have remained largely silent about a strategy to prevent more violence. The discrepancy has lent partisan undertones to the Sandy Hook response that Boehner clearly wants to eliminate.
Boehner said the GOP’s strategy would be to examine the reasons why the mass shootings of recent years have been carried out, almost exclusively, by young, white males with mental illnesses, according to the lawmaker in the room.
“We need to have a discussion about guns,” the lawmaker said, relaying Boehner’s remarks, “and that doesn’t mean that all of a sudden we abandon the Second Amendment or the NRA [National Rifle Association] or anything like that. But there needs to be a discussion and everybody needs to participate and we need to depoliticize it.”
Boehner also told Republicans that they need to be “circumspect” in their observations, the lawmaker said, warning that “it’s not helpful” for lawmakers to call for arming teachers as a way to prevent mass shootings.
That remark was a not-so-veiled shot at Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), who made headlines Sunday when he lamented that one of the victims, Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung, was unarmed during the attack.
“I wish to God she had an M-4 in her office locked up so when she heard gunfire she pulls it out and she didn’t have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands but she takes him out, takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids,” Gohmert said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”
The massacre — occurring so close to the holidays and targeting young kids — has put the NRA and other opponents of gun reform in a tough spot. Indeed, two Sunday news show hosts, CBS’s Bob Schieffer and NBC’s David Gregory, said they struggled this week to find gun-rights supporters who’d agree to interviews. And the NRA was silent on the tragedy until Tuesday, when the group issued a brief statement vowing “meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again.”
Boehner’s comments Tuesday, which are an indication that GOP leaders view that silence as a losing strategy, mark a shift for the Ohio Republican, who has shown no interest in gun reform in the face of other recent mass shootings.
Indeed, after the February shooting death of three students at Chardon High School not far from his congressional district, Boehner rejected the call for new gun laws, suggesting tougher rules would not keep criminals from obtaining firearms. Instead, Boehner called on gun owners not to shoot other people.
“Let’s be honest, there are about 250 million guns in America,” he said at the time. “So they are out there, but people should use them responsibly.”
Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio) noted the change on Tuesday, telling The Hill that the mood in the conference among “even the strongest gun supporters” is that they “don’t object to having a conversation about it, which is a big shift.”