Rep. Mike Thompson said Monday that his bill to expand background checks on gun buyers stands little chance of coming to a vote this year in the House even though he believes it has enough support to pass.
"I'd bet it would not get to the House floor," Thompson, D-Napa, told a meeting of The Press Democrat editorial board.
In an election year, any measure related to gun control is problematic for Democrats as well as Republicans, he said.
"There are a lot of folks who don't want to do anything tough," said Thompson, chairman of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force.
But Thompson said the bill he co-authored with Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, now has 189 co-sponsors, including three Republicans.
More Republicans have said they would vote for the bill but are unwilling to sign on as co-sponsors, he said.
If all 199 House Democrats voted for the bill, it would need 17 Republican votes to pass.
The Thompson-King bill would require background checks for all firearms sales, including transactions at gun shows, over the Internet and by newspaper ads.
An identical measure failed in the Senate last year with 54 "yes" votes, six short of the number needed for passage.
The House bill was assigned to a committee last April, and House Republican leaders determine the measures that come to a floor vote.
Opposition by the National Rifle Association "scared away the requisite number" of votes for any gun control legislation, said Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., who accompanied Thompson on his visit to Santa Rosa on Monday.
Scott is a vice-chairman of the House Democrats' task force on gun violence.
Thompson noted that the NRA helped draft his bill, adding that "we didn't touch weapons" in the background checks measure. The bill doesn't ban any type of weapons.
Thompson, a hunter and a Vietnam War combat veteran, said he personally opposes assault weapons but that renewing a federal ban wouldn't pass the House or Senate, nor remove them from society.
"There's 50 million of them (assault weapons) out there," he said.
Fifteen months after the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, Thompson said gun control has "lost momentum" as a public concern.
"The problem is it has fallen off the front pages," he said.
Sonoma County Supervisor Shirlee Zane and District Attorney Jill Ravitch endorsed Thompson's bill at a rally in Santa Rosa last September.
You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com.
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