Michael Gerson: “Honestly, I don’t know how effective any of these three ideas — reducing the permissible age for gun sales, strengthening background checks and passing a national red-flag law — would be in the prevention of mass shootings. But I know that none of them are remotely unconstitutional.”

“And I know that a healthy legislative process would pass these laws, closely monitor their effectiveness, consider improvements to strengthen them, and then examine other promising ideas that emerge and pass other legislation.”

President Biden will travel to Uvalde, Texas on Sunday to “grieve with the community that lost twenty-one lives in the horrific elementary school shooting,” USA Today reports.

Florida state Rep. Randy Fine (R) tweeted what appeared to be a threat toward President Biden. 

Said Fine: “I have news for the embarrassment that claims to be our President — try to take our guns and you’ll learn why the Second Amendment was written in the first place.”

“The calculation behind Republicans’ steadfast opposition to any new gun regulations — even in the face of the kind of unthinkable massacre that occurred Tuesday at an elementary school in Texas — is a fairly simple one for Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota,” the New York Times reports.

“Asked Wednesday what the reaction would be from voters back home if he were to support any significant form of gun control, the first-term Republican had a straightforward answer: ‘Most would probably throw me out of office.'”

Philip Bump: “Again: a lot of this is uncertain. But it does appear that more than 20 people were killed despite a security officer at the scene when the gunman arrived and despite the police being there soon after the killing began.”

“In other words, there were lots of ‘good guys with guns’ in Uvalde, as the rhetorical line goes. But 19 kids died anyway.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was confronted by Mark Stone of Sky News about the astounding number of mass shootings in the United States:

STONE: Is this the moment to reform gun laws?

CRUZ: You know, it’s easy to go to politics…

STONE: But it’s important, it’s at the heart of the issue.

CRUZ: I get that that is where the media likes to go… The proposals from Democrats and the media, inevitably when some violent psychopath murders people…

STONE: A violent psychopath who’s able to get a weapon so easily. An 18-year-old with two AR-15s… But why does this only happen in your country? I really think that’s what many people around the world cannot fathom, why only in America. Why is this American exceptionalism so awful?

Cruz then tried to walk away.

Former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) wouldn’t answer a reporter’s question about voting against a 2013 background checks bill.

Said Heitkamp: “I no longer have to answer your questions.”

A new Morning Consult poll finds 88% of Americans strongly or somewhat support requiring background checks on all gun sales while just 8% strongly or somewhat oppose them.

Meanwhile, 75% strongly of somewhat support creating a national database with info about each gun sale, while 18% strongly or somewhat opposes.

And 84% strongly or somewhat support preventing sales of all firearms to people reported as dangerous to law enforcement by a mental health provider, while 9% strongly or somewhat oppose that.

Texas Tribune: “Just 30 minutes before morning mass began at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where dozens of residents gathered Wednesday morning to pray, Fatima Abraham, a community leader in the church, sat next to a woman weeping in the first pew and consoled her in her arms. The woman, Abraham said, was the mother of the shooter who opened fire at Robb Elementary, killing 19 children and two adults on Tuesday.”

“Gov. Greg Abbott said he was not sure whether he would attend the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Houston this week, which will take place days after a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at a Uvalde elementary school on Tuesday,” the Texas Tribune reports.

“Shortly after the nation’s latest mass shooting, which killed at least 18 children at an elementary school in Texas, the California Senate passed a bill Tuesday to allow private citizens to file suit for at least $10,000 — a bounty-hunter provision modeled on a Texas abortion law — against makers or sellers of untraceable ghost guns or illegal assault weapons,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

David Frum: “Every other democracy makes some considerable effort to keep guns away from dangerous people, and dangerous people away from guns. For many years—and especially since the massacre at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School almost a decade ago—the United States has put more and more guns into more and more hands: 120 guns per 100 people in this country.”

“The years of the pandemic have been the years of the greatest gun sales in U.S. history: almost 20 million guns sold in 2020; another 18.5 million sold in 2021. No surprise, those two years also witnessed a surge in gun violence: the spectacular human butchery of our recurring mass slaughters; the surge of one-on-one lethal criminality; the unceasing tragic toll of carelessness as American gun owners hurt and kill their loved ones and themselves.”

“Most of us are appalled. But not enough of us are sufficiently appalled to cast our votes to halt it.”

The National Rifle Association said its “deepest sympathies” are with the families and victims of the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school massacre, CNBC reports.

“They are disturbed, upset, troubled, but not willing to change where they are. Usually I want to be more optimistic. But, like, I don’t think it’ll change anything… I don’t see any hope today for getting 10 Republican senators to join us in further restrictions on military-style weapons.”

— Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), quoted by Politico, on the prospects for gun reform legislation.