The Caucus: Gun Maker’s Sale Is Sign of Altered Debate Since Massacre

4:43 p.m. | Updated The reaction to the Newtown shootings spread to corporate America and to California on Tuesday, as a private equity firm said it would immediately sell the company that made the assault-style rifle used in shootings, while California lawmakers announced an effort to regulate the sale of ammunition more tightly.

The legislation, being introduced by State Senator Kevin de León, a Democrat, would require anyone looking to buy ammunition for any kind of weapon to undergo a background check and obtain a one-year permit costing $50. The legislation would also ban the sale of ammunition in California by mail, requiring that all transactions be done in person.

Democrats said that given the party’s increasingly powerful control of the Legislature – they now control two-thirds of the seats, in both the Assembly and the Senate – they were confident that the legislation could pass swiftly and hoped it would set a model for other states around the country.

In announcing the sale of the gun manufacturer, the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management made clear that the decision stemmed from the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Conn. “It is apparent that the Sandy Hook tragedy was a watershed event that has raised the national debate on gun control to an unprecedented level,” Cerberus said in a news release.

The firm said it planned to sell the Freedom Group, which makes the .223 Bushmaster rifle used in the massacre. Cerberus acquired Bushmaster in 2006, later merging it with other gun companies to create the Freedom Group.

Tuesday’s announcement follows a statement from the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, a large pension fund, that it was reviewing its investment in Cerberus in light of the firm’s holding in the Freedom Group.

Cerberus is one of several private equity firms that have holdings in gun manufacturers. Colt Defense, which was spun out of the maker of the .44-40 Colt revolver, is jointly owned by Sciens Capital Management, a fund advised by the Blackstone Group and another fund operated by Credit Suisse.

Separately, Dick’s Sporting Goods, a chain with more than 500 stores, said in a statement on its Web site that it was stopping all sales and displays of guns at its store closest to Newtown and was temporarily ceasing sales of modern rifles nationwide.

Walmart.com removed its information page on the Bushmaster .223, a semiautomatic model said to be used by the Newtown gunman, Adam Lanza. And Bass Pro Shop was not listing information about Bushmaster-brand guns on its Web site, though it had promoted the brand in a Black Friday special.

Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, said it removed the information page on Bushmaster “in light of the tragic events.” However, it will continue to sell the Bushmaster and said it had made no changes to its sales policies on guns and ammunition.

Recently, Walmart has been increasing its emphasis on gun sales, after a five-year period in which it had backed away from them. In 2006, the company stopped selling guns in most of its United States stores, saying there was little customer demand for the items. But in 2011, it reversed that decision, saying it wanted to appeal to hunting enthusiasts, and began selling guns at more than half of its stores.

Around the country, gun-control advocates continued on Tuesday to seize on public grief and anger about Friday’s massacre of 20 young children to insist on quick, broad action by President Obama and Congress to regulate firearms, confront mental illness and address violence in the media and video games.

The White House hinted at the kinds of gun measures Mr. Obama would embrace. In the past, the president has endorsed reinstatement of an expired ban on assault weapons without putting any political muscle into it on the calculation that the votes were not there. This time, he will be “actively supportive” of a fresh legislative effort, said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary. The president will also support closing a gun show loophole, and “potentially” limits on high-capacity ammunition clips of the sort used in Newtown, Mr. Carney said.

But Mr. Carney said the president hoped to go beyond just gun regulation. “While he supports strongly renewal of the assault weapons ban, and strongly other measures, he wants to expand the conversation beyond those specific areas of legislation to look at other ways we can address this problem,” he said.

While he did not specify, Mr. Carney mentioned mental health, education and “perhaps” cultural issues that may contribute to mass killings. He embraced a call by David Axelrod, the president’s strategist in the recent election, to rethink violent video games that glorify killing.

Four days after the shootings, the gun-control debate is intensifying even as the residents of Newtown slowly carry on with the grim task of burying their loved ones. Funerals for the victims of the shooting are being held throughout the week, ahead of the Christmas holiday next Tuesday.

Residents of Newtown, where Mr. Lanza killed 26 people at the elementary school, as well as his mother and himself, announced the formation of a group called Newtown United, focused on turning the tragedy in their community into political pressure to confront the country’s gun culture.

“I would like, when you think of Sandy Hook, you think, ‘Oh, that’s where they banned assault weapons,’ ” John Neuhoff, a Newtown resident, told Reuters. “If we can ban fireworks, we should be able to ban assault weapons.”

At the same time, some gun-rights advocates said that they would resist new limits on firearms, and two of the nation’s Republican governors said the Connecticut shootings should not curtail the rights of their citizens to carry concealed weapons.

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas told a Tea Party group on Monday that he opposed “knee-jerk reaction from Washington, D.C.” in the wake of the shootings and said that schoolteachers and administrators should be allowed to carry concealed weapons, according to The Dallas Morning News.

In Ohio, Gov. John R. Kasich said he still intended to sign a bill allowing guns in the parking garages of the State Capitol, saying in a statement to The Plain Dealer of Cleveland that he is “a Second Amendment supporter and that’s not going to change.”

“There are a range of issues at play here involving mental health, school security and a culture that at times fails to reject the glorification of violence that can desensitize us to the sanctity and majesty of life,” Mr. Kasich told the newspaper. “Going forward, we need to pay close attention to what the experts conclude from this incident in order to see if there are lessons to be learned and applied here in Ohio.”

In its first official statement since the school shooting, the National Rifle Association said it was “shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the murders” and would weigh in on the growing public debate about guns and violence at a news conference on Friday.

In a statement e-mailed by a spokesman on Tuesday, the group said that “out of respect for the families, and as a matter of common decency, we have given time for mourning, prayer and a full investigation of the facts before commenting.”

The group said it would participate in the debate, in part with what its statement described as a “major news conference” on Friday, but it did not offer any particulars on Tuesday.

“The N.R.A. is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again,” the statement said.

The events in Newtown appear to have energized gun-control advocates who view the somber aftermath of the tragedy as an opportunity — but only if change comes quickly, before the memory of the children and their teachers fades.

In California, aides to Mr. de León said that the idea behind his legislation was to try to slow the distribution of ammunition, given how many weapons are already in circulation.

Still, an earlier effort to restrict ammunition sales in the state ran into obstacles. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former Republican governor, signed a similar measure that would apply only to handguns, in effort to crack down on gangs. The National Rifle Association challenged the legislation in court, and a Superior Court judge ruled that the definition of handgun ammunition was unconstitutionally vague.

Mr. de León said that he was seeking to address those legal concerns by introducing legislation that would apply to all types of ammunition. “It continues to be easier in California to purchase handgun ammunition than it is a packet of cigarettes or allergy medicine,” the sponsors of the bill said in a memorandum released Tuesday.

In addition to California, other states are moving to take legislative action. In Colorado, Gov. John W. Hickenlooper announced Tuesday plans to revamp the state’s mental health services and bolster firearms background checks aimed at making it more difficult for a mentally ill person to buy a gun.

Mr. Hickenlooper will also ask state lawmakers to allocate nearly $20 million to finance improvements to the state’s mental health system. Those improvements would include the building of two transitional facilities for patients being released from mental health hospitals and expansion of case management services for the mentally ill.

Eric Brown, a spokesman for the governor said the changes were being proposed in direct response to the July shootings in a crowded Aurora, Colo., movie theater.

Stephanie Clifford, Nicholas Confessore, Dan Frosch, Peter Baker and Mark Scott contributed reporting.

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The Caucus: Some Unlikely Democrats Join in Push for New Gun Laws

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3:19 p.m. | Updated Congressional Democrats showed signs on Monday of a more aggressive push on gun control in the wake of the Newtown killings, while Republicans and gun rights advocates remained largely silent on policy matters.

Joe Manchin III, the pro-gun-rights West Virginia senator who drew attention in 2010 after running a commercial that showed him firing a rifle at an environmental bill, said that “everything should be on the table” as gun control is debated in the coming weeks and months.

Representative John Yarmuth, a moderate Democrat from Kentucky, said he finally felt compelled to speak out on an issue that has been untouchable for many elected officials.

“I have been largely silent on the issue of gun violence over the past six years, and I am now as sorry for that as I am for what happened to the families who lost so much in this most recent, but sadly not isolated, tragedy,” Mr. Yarmuth said in a statement. “The National Rifle Association has spent untold millions of dollars instilling fear in our citizens and our politicians.”

He added, “I believe it is more rational to fear guns far more than the illusory political power of the N.R.A.”

And in a Twitter message sent out before a television appearance, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia called the episode a “game changer.”

The National Rifle Association has been largely silent since the shootings on Friday morning. On Monday, the home page of its Web site contained a blog post from Nov. 27, titled “More Guns, Less Crime in Virginia,” and the association’s Twitter account, which is normally active, has not sent a message since Friday.

It remains unclear whether any new legislation is likely to pass, especially given that Congress remains focused on budget matters for the time being. President Obama said at a memorial service that he planned to take executive action to reduce shootings, although he has not yet specified what that action might be.

Remarks on Monday from the two leaders of the Senate, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, and Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, underscored how difficult it will be to challenge the status quo. Both men, though far apart ideologically on most political issues, come from states where gun rights are especially cherished. And both made rather muted remarks on Monday.

Speaking from the floor of the Senate, Mr. Reid said the country was failing to keep people safe, though he did not go as far as his colleagues in calling for new laws. “As President Obama said last night, no one law can erase evil. No policy can prevent a determined madman from committing a senseless act of violence,” he said. “But we need to accept the reality that we are not doing enough to protect our citizens.”

Mr. McConnell entirely sidestepped the question of gun control, limiting his statement only to expressions of sadness and sympathy. “So we stand with the people of Newtown today and in the days ahead,” he said. “We can do nothing to lessen their anguish, but we can let them know that we mourn with them, that we share a tiny part of their burden in our own hearts.”

But the tone of the political debate does seem to have shifted, at least temporarily, after the shootings, which left 27 people dead, including 20 children.

Mr. Manchin, a Democrat and an avid hunter with an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, indicated that he supported re-evaluating laws that permit people to have clips that hold dozens of rounds of ammunition and to own assault rifles.

“I don’t know anybody in the sporting or hunting arena that goes out with an assault rifle,” Mr. Manchin said, speaking on the MSNBC program “Morning Joe.”

“I don’t know anybody who needs 30 rounds in a clip to go hunting. I mean, these are things that need to be talked about,” he added.

While Mr. Manchin stopped short of saying what, if any, changes to gun laws he would support, his words amounted to one of the strongest signals yet that in the aftermath of the school massacre in Newtown, Conn., longtime gun rights supporters are taking a more measured approach to Second Amendment issues.

Gun control has been something of a third rail for many lawmakers, including Mr. Obama, who critics say has not pushed for any meaningful reforms. Any effort to rewrite gun laws in Congress would certainly be a complicated and difficult task.

But, as Mr. Manchin said on Monday, the Newtown shooting has caused many like him to pause and rethink the issue.

“Millions and millions of people are proud gun owners, and they do it responsibly,” he said. “Seeing the massacre of so many innocent children, it’s changed – it’s changed America. We’ve never seen this happen.”

The National Rifle Association’s political fund has praised Mr. Manchin for taking various steps to protect gun owners, like signing a law prohibiting the confiscating of guns during a state of emergency while he was governor of West Virginia.

In his comments on Monday, Mr. Manchin was careful to note that the dialogue would have to take place in a way that reassured the N.R.A. and others that their right to bear arms was not in jeopardy. He said he would be approaching the N.R.A. to discuss the issue soon.

“I’ll go over and sit down with them and say, ‘How can we take the dialogue to a different level?’” he said. “How can we sit down and make sure that we’re moving and not be afraid that someone’s going to attack our freedoms and our rights?”

Still, other prominent Democrats went further, calling outright for tougher laws.

Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, who is the chairman of a subcommittee on the Constitution and civil rights, said that he would hold hearings on Second Amendment rights. And Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who was with the San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978 as he lay dying from an assassin’s bullet, said she would introduce legislation that would ban the sale and possession of large clips of ammunition and strips that hold more than 10 bullets.

Mr. Durbin wrote an article published by The Chicago Tribune on Monday in which he argued for new limits on weapons ownership.

“What will it take?” Mr. Durbin wrote, listing one by one the mass shootings that have occurred in the United States over the past few years. “What it will take is for the majority of Americans, and the majority of thoughtful gun owners and hunters, to agree that there must be reasonable limits on gun ownership and weapons.”

With passions running high after the Newtown massacre, Democrats said they anticipated a call from gun rights advocates to resist emotional calls to rewrite gun laws. And advocates for changes are certain to face a tough battle as they run up against one of Washington’s most powerful and well-financed lobbies.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York held a news conference on Monday with dozens of people who had lost loved ones to gun violence, at which he unveiled a video campaign and Web site demanding that Mr. Obama and Congress do something about guns. He gave a very specific list of demands, both for legislation and executive action, and repeatedly called out Mr. Obama for doing too little on the issue.

Top New York Democrats have also been vocal the need for tougher federal regulation of firearms. In Albany, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said he would make several gun policy proposals in his state of the state address next month. The governor, who was a strong advocate for gun control as secretary of housing and urban development in the Clinton administration, said that the state’s assault weapons ban has multiple loopholes that need to be addressed, but that action really needs to happen at the federal level.

Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York called for “a new paradigm” in the gun control debate and cautioned that proponents of tighter regulation needed to be mindful of the concerns of responsible gun owners as they pursued their cause, which has so often fallen short.

“First, those of us who are pro-gun-control have to admit that there is a Second Amendment right to bear arms,” he said. And the other side, he added, was being counterproductive by claiming “the left wants to take that hunting rifle your Uncle Tommy gave you when you were 15.”

Mr. Schumer was speaking Sunday on “Face the Nation” on CBS. Its host, Bob Schieffer, noted that he had invited Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the program to respond, but that all of them had declined.

Politicians, lobbyists and policy experts continued on Monday to discuss the prospect of new limitations on firearms, with stronger support and even some indications of softening opposition to gun control in the aftermath of the mass killing.

Joe Scarborough, the host of “Morning Joe” and a former Republican congressman from Florida who highlighted his support of gun rights, also made comments on the program calling for action from Washington on several fronts.

“The violence we see spreading from shopping malls in Oregon, to movie theaters in Colorado, to college campuses in Virginia, to elementary schools in Connecticut, is being spawned by the toxic view of a violent popular culture, a growing mental health crisis and the proliferation of combat-style weapons,” Mr. Scarborough said.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut who is about to leave Congress, was among those calling for restrictions on assault weapons, a position favored by many Democrats. He is also calling for a commission to look broadly at the problem of gun violence and its causes.

Mr. Lieberman repeated his views that assault weapons “were weapons created by the U.S. military for use in war.”

“When it comes to mental health, this is complicated,” he continued. “We’ve got to find a way to create a society in which those closest to people in trouble, mentally, acknowledge that” and help them secure assistance.

As for violence in the entertainment and video game industry, which Mr. Lieberman has also said may contribute to a culture of violence, he said, “I think we really do have to reopen the conversation and go back and ask ourselves, ‘Is there more we can do?’”

John H. Cushman Jr. contributed reporting from Washington. Thomas Kaplan and Danny Hakim contributed reporting from Albany. Michael M. Grynbaum contributed reporting from New York.

Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images A message addressed to President Obama was among the stuffed toys at a makeshift shrine to the victims of the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., on Monday.

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