As Vice President Biden prepares to issue his gun safety recommendations to the president early next week, Connecticut Democrats are keeping the pressure on. WNPR's Jeff Cohen reports. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy say they've sent a letter to Biden, urging measures that would expand assault weapons bans, institute universal background checks for gun and ammunition purchase, and improve federal tracking of firearms.
Blumenthal says he thinks there's been a "seismic shift" in political views on gun control following Newtown. And Murphy says he thinks some of the laws being discussed could have prevented the tragedy at the Sandy Hook Elementary School last month. "I truly believe that if the assault weapons ban, along with the high-capacity magazine ban, was in place last December, there would still be little boys and girls alive today in Newtown."
Murphy says he thinks the political fight will be a difficult one. On WNPR's Where We Live, Governor Dannel Malloy offered one explanation for why. He says gunmaker Smith and Wesson once tried to work more collaboratively with government. "And they were badly punished by folks for having done that. There are people in the gun industry that, if you had private conversations with, would be able to even agree on some of the things that I'm talking about. For instance, there are people in the gun industry who believe there should be universal background checks. But they're not going to come forward and say it, at least not now, because they saw what happened to Smith and Wesson in the marketplace."
Meanwhile, Vice President Biden has promised to forward recommendations to President Barack Obama by Tuesday.
