Gun Rights Orgs Oppose Cornyn’s Bid to Replace McConnell as Senate GOP Leader

With the aged and infirm Senator Mitch McConnell announcing that he’ll be stepping down as GOP Senate Leader after the election, the tussle is on to replace him. To virtually no one’s surprise, Texas Senator John Cornyn wants the job despite not currently holding a position in the Senate GOP leadership.

And why not? Wouldn’t having a Senator from a gun-loving state like Texas in the top job be a good thing? It probably would…if the Senator hadn’t repeatedly demonstrated that he not only doesn’t give a damn about gun rights and can be duped by those across the aisle into signing onto anti-gun legislation and helping them get it passed.

John Cornyn is a clueless rube. He’s someone Democrats have ID’d as an easy mark who can be talked into getting on board with never-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste legislation they inevitably try to pass after a high profile shooting puts some wind in their anti-gun sails.

That’s exactly what happened when Cornyn threw in with Senate gun-grabbing droogs like Connecticut’s Chris Murphy after the Uvalde shooting. Cornyn gave the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act it’s bipartisan fig leaf. In a closely-divided Senate, he provided cover for other Republican squishes to sign on and get it passed.

Handing Joe Biden a political victory — one he has and will continue to trumpet as a great leap forward for gun control — was bad enough. But despite the hype and billing, the bill had little if anything to do with “gun safety”…as should have been perfectly clear to anyone with more than five minutes of experience in Washington. Instead, it’s been weaponized by the Biden administration against gun rights by . . .

— Pulling federal funding from schools with hunting safety programs
— Creating “enhanced background checks” and a de facto 10-day waiting period for gun purchases by adults under 21 years old
— Strong-arming states into enacting “red flag” confiscation laws
— Expanding the definition of “engaged in the business” of selling firearms in order to expand the requirement for federal background checks

Senator Cornyn claimed he was shocked, SHOCKED! that the bill was used in these ways and dismayed that he most anti-gun administration in American history would use the law to advance its anti-gun agenda. But that was just Cornyn’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge the fact that he’d been rolled by Biden and taken in by Chuck Schumer’s Cheshire grin.

Now that Cornyn has announced that he wants McConnell’s job, gun rights orgs are sounding the alarm, coming out in full opposition to seeing him in any position of leadership where he can do still more damage. As NAGR announced to its members . . .

“Cornyn is the most anti-gun Republican in Congress,” said Dudley Brown, President of the National Association for Gun Rights. “His sponsorship of ‘Fix NICS’ and proud role in passing the largest gun control bill in decades (Biden’s so-called Bipartisan Safer Communities Act) is repulsive to law-abiding gun owners.”

POLITICO reports: The President, in fact, also sees Cornyn as critical; the Senator’s staff is in touch with the White House on guns and Biden recently described the Texan as a “rational Republican.” “People are going to say what they’re going to say,” Cornyn said. “But I’m happy to be part of the coalition of the rational.”

“When the most anti-gun President in history calls an anti-gun Republican ‘rational’ that should set off alarm bells in every law-abiding gun owners’ head,” concluded Brown.

The National Association for Gun Rights is calling on its members and all law-abiding gun rights supporters to call the Senate Republican Conference (202-224-2764) and tell them that they oppose Sen. Cornyn’s bid for Republican Senate Leader.

GOA isn’t sitting back either. As their Director of Federal Affairs Aiden Johnson told the Daily Caller . . .

“The United States Senate deserves a conservative pro-gun leader, and John Cornyn is not that person, it seems. I’ll say every time a gun issue comes up: He’s right there with a compromise. And that’s not leadership. That’s just capitulation to gun control. Americans deserve someone who will refuse to compromise with their God-given Second Amendment rights. And unfortunately, John Cornyn is, always, always, always cutting deals with our Second Amendment,” Johnston told the Caller.

“I mean, as far back as, 2007-2008 John Cornyn was not standing up to object to gun control when the Veterans Disarmament Act passed, otherwise known as the NICs Improvement Amendment Act. But then you’ve got the Fix NICs Act, the followed successor to that 2008 bill,” Johnston continued. “The Fix NICs Act, which passed in 2017-2018. And that bill was supposed to only pass coupled with concealed carry reciprocity, but it was squishy Republicans in Congress that let the two bills be separated, and they passed the gun control and not concealed carry.” 

He then slammed Cornyn over the Safer Communities Act, which he cosponsored with Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy. The compromise package was negotiated between Cornyn and Murphy in the Summer of 2022 and created an “enhanced background check” for adults under 21. The bill also expanded the definition of who is a gun dealer and thereby required to conduct a background check. Under that new system, one single gun sale in a calendar year could lead to people having to get licensed as a dealer and having to conduct background checks.

Nuff said.

John Cornyn is a gun rights disaster waiting to happen (again). He’s never been presented with a gun control compromise he couldn’t find a way to get behind. And compared to the other GOP Johns who’ve thrown their hats in the ring for McConnell’s job, Cornyn is clearly the worst possible choice when the right to keep and bear arms is on the table.