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In the Senate, Chasing an Ever-Elusive Gun Law Deal After a string of Democratic failures on marquee issues, Senator Chuck Schumer’s decision to give bipartisan gun talks time is a test of the Senate — and of democracy itself.

WASHINGTON — The decision of the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, to try for a negotiated compromise on new gun laws in the wake of the latest pair of mass shootings may prove to be a high-stakes bet on representative democracy itself, made at a time when faith in Congress — and the Senate in particular — is in tatters in both parties.

President Biden’s promise on Sunday to the families of the shooting victims in Uvalde, Texas — assuring them that “we will” do something about gun violence — raised the pressure on a Senate in which filibusters and disunity have been the watchwords of the past year.

By raising expectations that a bipartisan deal on gun safety, mental health and school security is even possible, Mr. Schumer is intensifying the spotlight — not only on Republicans and whether they will come to the table in good faith, but also on the institution of the Senate and its ability to grapple with a pressing national issue like gun violence, so searing in its trauma and obvious in its impact.

On Monday, the government in Canada banned handgun sales and proposed legislation requiring that most owners of “military-style assault weapons” turn over their rifles to a government buyback program.

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Nothing like that is in the offing in Washington. But even if a compromise means scaling back gun control legislation, it would be worth it, said Senator Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut, the Democrats’ chief negotiator, to get legislative momentum for more stringent measures and to reassure the parties and their voters that representative democracy can still function.

“We need to show Republicans that they can strengthen the background check system in a meaningful way and get politically rewarded for it,” he said in an interview. “That’s why I’m willing to look at things that might be less than what I would like.”

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The bipartisan group of 10 senators working on the issue was to have a Zoom call on Tuesday to work out a framework for negotiations during the holiday recess, Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, told reporters on Monday. Congress will be back in session June 6.

Failure on this — which many Democrats, including Mr. Schumer, concede is likely after a decade of similar efforts have collapsed — would be lumped onto a growing pile of disappointments that have depressed Democratic voter enthusiasm since the party took control of Washington.

Among the defeats: a major bill on voting rights and democracy reform, far-reaching legislation on social welfare and climate change, and an effort to guarantee abortion access. Then there are the achievements that are being wiped away because Democrats lack the 60 votes to keep them alive, including the expiration of an expanded child tax credit that dramatically lowered child poverty rates while it was in place and the looming expiration of enlarged health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.
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In an evenly divided Senate and facing Republican obstruction, Democrats say they should be commended for their successes on measures like a $1 trillion infrastructure bill and postal reform, which have been discussed for years but never accomplished. More achievements could be coming, such as aiding veterans harmed by open-air “burn pits” in Iraq and Afghanistan and expanding domestic semiconductor manufacturing.

But none of that is likely to have the resonance of action on guns — which polls show is supported on both the left and the right. The negotiations also come at a moment when some in both parties are ready to give up on the Senate’s ability to function without major structural changes.

Already, some liberals are pressing to expand the Supreme Court and do away with the filibuster, arguing that Senate Republicans’ partisan treatment of nominees has unfairly stacked the court and that compromise with the Republican Party is impossible.

Some conservatives have questioned the very bedrock of representative democracy, nominating Republican candidates for the coming midterm elections who have falsely declared the 2020 election stolen and indicated a willingness to warp the outcome of future elections.

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Senator Christopher S. Murphy is leading the talks to find a path forward for legislation on guns.
Senator Christopher S. Murphy is leading the talks to find a path forward for legislation on guns.Credit…Shuran Huang for The New York Times

And in truth, though Americans’ faith in Congress is minute, most do not even know how bad the Senate has become. Without time to watch C-SPAN, few are aware that the world’s supposedly greatest deliberative body has spent most of its time of late churning through confirmations of midlevel executive branch officials and federal judges. Those nominations — once routinely approved unanimously — now take days and must be considered one at a time.

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