John Cornyn Launches 2A Redemption Tour With Concealed Carry Bill Compliment
The senior Texas Senator is attempting to convince gun owners that he is really on their side, despite being a key architect of the "Bipartisan Safer Communities Act" in 2022.
Texas Senator John Cornyn and Louisiana Senator John Kennedy introduced Thursday a Senate compliment to the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, introduced in the House earlier this week as H.R. 38. (I cover the House bill for the New York Sun here.)
Here’s the deal: Cornyn is trying to redeem himself with the gun-owning community ahead of his next election in 2026. Less than two years after his 2020 election, in 2022, Cornyn was one of 15 Republican Senators who caved on the Second Amendment and sided with Democrats to deliver one of, if not the biggest, “wins” of President Biden’s tenure, the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.”
Of course, as I covered at the time, Republicans in both chambers chose to push a key GOP party platform plank of “protecting constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms” to the side and infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans.
Cornyn’s choice to act in this manner was undoubtedly due to public pressure in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting tragedy which happened in his state. Yet, his fellow Texas Senator Ted Cruz didn’t cave to the anti-gun mob. Cruz and Wyoming Senator Barrasso introduced their own piece of gun legislation that did not contain federal funding to support state-operated red flag law implementation. Their bill was not considered by their fellow Senators in any serious manner. Cornyn’s 2022 action on gun control could even be considered to go against the very design of the Senate itself, which with its six-year terms is not supposed to be subject to the political whims of the people.
Cornyn undoubtedly knows that his path to victory in another term will be tough without the vote of gun owners, who were a key coalition in Trump’s 2024 victory. The Senator’s 2020 re-election was won by the slimmest margin of all four races he has run since 2002.
Out of the 15 Republican Senators who backed the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act”, just two have been re-elected. Five others did not choose to seek re-election, and eight presently serve in seats up for re-election in 2026. Those Senators are as follows: Bill Cassidy (R-LA), John Cornyn (R-TX), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Susan Collins (R-ME) - 2026 Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), and Mitch McConnell (R-KY).