Health Care CEOs Join 220 Companies Imploring Senate To Act On Guns

Modern Healthcare: Northwell, Kaiser Permanente Execs Join CEOs Backing Gun Legislation
Top executives from Northwell Health, Kaiser Permanente and Children's Minnesota are among hundreds of corporate leaders urging the Senate to pass gun safety legislation in a letter sent to lawmakers Thursday. The letter from CEOs for Gun Safety calls on senators to "transcend partisanship" and swiftly advance legislation to curb gun violence following the killings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and recent shootings at a medical facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. "The gun violence epidemic represents a public health crisis that continues to devastate communities—especially Black and brown communities—and harm our national economy. All of this points to a clear need for action: The Senate must take urgent action to pass bold gun safety legislation as soon as possible in order to avoid more death and injury," the CEOs wrote. The House passed a gun safety bill Wednesday but the measure faces a stiffer challenge in the evenly divided Senate. (Devereaux, 6/9)

USA Today: Gun Safety Legislation In America Gets Strong Support From Top CEOs
Chief executives from more than 200 companies have sent a letter to the U.S. Senate urging lawmakers to pass gun safety legislation. ... "Like you, we continue to bear witness to the toll of America’s gun violence epidemic and its impact on our communities," the letter reads. "Our country needs you to take bold urgent action to address our gun violence epidemic." (Molina, 6/9)

Senators weigh their options —

Politico: Conservatives Lay Off Senate Gun Negotiations
Something strange is happening among Senate Republicans when it comes to guns. As bipartisan talks on a gun safety package continue, conservatives are pointedly not trying to derail them. Several, in fact, seem open to supporting a modest deal. And Republicans are considering some ideas that would have been a non-starter just a month ago, particularly more scrutiny of gun buyers’ juvenile records. Summing up the view of conservatives at the moment, Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said: “I’m a gun owner and I use them a lot. And I think it hurts the Second Amendment over time if you don’t do the stuff [that] makes sense.” (Everett and Levine, 6/9)

The Washington Post: Senators Raise Concerns Over Red Flag Gun Laws 
Conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill are voicing increasingly sharp objections to any federal effort to promote red-flag laws meant to keep guns away from individuals found to be at risk of committing murder or attempting suicide, a provision that has been a centerpiece of bipartisan Senate talks on gun control. The reservations are being aired at a crucial moment in the Senate negotiations, with Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and John Cornyn (R-Tex.) aiming to strike a handshake deal in the coming days that would allow a bill to pass Congress by the end of the month. Among those who have objected are the No. 3 Senate Republican leader, John Barrasso (Wyo.), and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a prominent conservative leader in the House. (DeBonis and Caldwell, 6/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Lawmakers Seek Breakthrough On Gun-Control Legislation
Negotiators are circling around several provisions, including boosting funding for mental health and school security, providing incentives for states to put in place red-flag laws and broadening background checks to include juvenile records. There was some discussion about a proposal to raise the age to buy assault-style weapons to 21 from 18, Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.) said Thursday, after several Republicans said they would be open to the provision. ... A spokesman for John Cornyn (R., Texas) later said that he had ruled out raising the age. “It’ll be a miracle if we get a framework agreement, nevermind a final bill,” Mr. Murphy said. “But sometimes miracles happen.” (Andrews and Collins, 6/9)

In state news —

The New York Times: Aware of Injuries Inside, Uvalde Police Waited to Confront Gunman
Heavily armed officers delayed confronting a gunman in Uvalde, Texas, for more than an hour even though supervisors at the scene had been told that some trapped with him in two elementary school classrooms needed medical treatment, a new review of video footage and other investigative material shows. Instead, the documents show, they waited for protective equipment to lower the risk to law enforcement officers. (Goodman, 6/9)

Politico: Florida Supreme Court Hears Gun Law Challenge Amid National Debate Over Restrictions
Amid the national debate over gun restrictions in the aftermath of tragic mass shootings, the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday heard arguments in a long-running legal challenge over a 2011 law that punishes local governments for passing strict gun laws. The legal fight has energized national groups to file briefs with the court, including the National Rifle Association on one side and the Giffords Law Center and League of Women Voters of Florida on the other. The Florida legal challenge has been in the judicial pipeline since 2018, when dozens of local cities and officials filed a challenge after the mass school shooting in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 dead and another 17 wounded. (Dixon, 6/9)

St. Louis Public Radio: Democrat Spencer Toder Backs Ukraine Aid And Gun Control 
Businessman and St. Louis County resident Spencer Toder said he was driven to run for the U.S. Senate because he felt “there wasn’t a candidate in the race who was willing to do the hard work to get in front of people and make people’s lives better.” “I decided it was the right time,” Toder said during a recent episode of Politically Speaking. “And after quite a bit of discussion, we decided that the best thing we could do to improve the quality of life for Missourians was for me to become the next U.S. Senator.” Toder spent a number of years in the business world, including playing a part in helping the CORTEX district in St. Louis grow into an emerging tech hub. (Rosenbaum and Kellogg, 6/9)

In related news —

PBS NewsHour: Support For Gun Rights Has Eroded After Nearly A Decade Of Mass Shootings, Poll Shows
Six out of 10 Americans think it is more important to control gun violence than protect gun rights, a significant rise over the last decade evident in the latest PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll, as mass shootings continue to erupt across the U.S. And as midterm elections approach, seven of 10 people say they’re more likely to vote in November after last month’s mass shootings at a school in Uvalde, Texas, and a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. Nearly a decade ago, four months after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, 49 percent of Americans said they prioritized controlling gun violence. In the latest poll, conducted in the wake of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that number rose to 59 percent, including 92 percent of Democrats and 54 percent of independents. Support for prioritizing gun rights dropped to 35 percent, but remained high among Republicans — 70 percent — and 56 percent of gun owners. (Santhanham, 6/9)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Taking A Shot At Gun Control
The House passed a package of bills to restrict the availability of assault weapons to minors and other measures to curb gun violence, but talks in the Senate have yet to produce breakthroughs on what has been a legislative stalemate for years. Meanwhile, as inflation continues to be a top-tier issue for voters, the Federal Trade Commission is looking into the practices of pharmacy benefit managers and hospitals in an attempt to preserve what price competition there is in the bloated U.S. health system. (6/9)

Politico: Bernie To Dems: Change Course Before You Nosedive In November 
Bernie Sanders has something to get off his chest: Without a course correction, he sees the Democratic Party on track to get shellacked this fall. As the progressive Vermonter, not one to mince words, put it in an interview on Tuesday: “You really can’t win an election with a bumper sticker that says: ‘Well, we can’t do much, but the other side is worse.’” (Everett, 6/9)