But in the wake of the nightclub shootings in Orlando, a small handful of them in the Senate are now showing greater willingness to compromise on the terror proposal than they did last December, when rival measures from the two parties to close the terror gap in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting both failed.
It is my hope that they close the "terror gap" and fast.
In May, he told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that Congress should close the terror gap in the nation's gun laws.
After the failure of four gun measures in the Senate on Monday evening, a compromise proposal seeking to close the terror gap appears to be gaining bipartisan backing.
The Senate measures to close the terror gap failed, and prospects for a bipartisan compromise bill dimmed when a maneuver by McConnell, now the Republican Majority Leader, let vulnerable GOP senators slip out of town.
Carter belongs to a small but vocal segment of Americans who oppose new restrictions on guns a group whose outsized influence on public policy was on full display this week as the US Senate rejected four bills that sought to close the terror gap.
Congressional inertia on gun control finally cracked and then crumbled when Democrats seized an opportunity to push for legislation that would close the terror gap, and address other gun control measures on the background check system and the lack of funding for public health research on gun violence.
A bill to close the terror gap was introduced in earlier in December, but it was voted down based on the argument that the government often mistakenly puts people on the list and that people who are on the list should have the chance to litigate their way off and be able to buy guns when they are taken off the list.
"We're going into an election season, and Mr. and Mrs. America, you have to stand up, and I'm going to vote only for people who will do something to close the terror gap, to keep guns out of the hands of people who are mentally incompetent, who are criminals and would use them illegally.
