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Per Trump's recent Tweet he said the Democrats didn't pass any gun control legislation when they had majorities in both houses of Congress during Obama's presidency because they didn't want to.

Just like they don’t want to solve the DACA problem, why didn’t the Democrats pass gun control legislation when they had both the House & Senate during the Obama Administration. Because they didn’t want to, and now they just talk!

—Donald J. Trump on Twitter, 17 Feb 2018

Is this accurate? It seems Democrats frequently talk about wanting to pass gun control legislation as a way to reduce gun related deaths, but this claim would imply otherwise.

SQB
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Liron Yahdav
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  • Go look at the facts. How long did Obama and the Democrats hold a veto-proof majority? – Daniel R Hicks Feb 20 '18 at 00:17
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    @BobTheAverage -- What??? You're saying that a Trump tweet isn't a "notable claim"?? – Daniel R Hicks Feb 20 '18 at 00:18
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    @DanielRHicks if you know the facts, please post an answer, that's why I'm asking the question, I don't know the facts. My understanding is a veto-proof majority is only relevant if the President is planning on vetoing the bill, which in this case I assume Obama would have supported and thus only a simple majority would be needed in Congress. – Liron Yahdav Feb 20 '18 at 00:29
  • @BobTheAverage also I agree with Daniel that this seems appropriate for Skeptics considering I'm trying to validate if the claim in the Tweet is accurate or misleading. – Liron Yahdav Feb 20 '18 at 00:30
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    @LironYahdav The question "Did democrats pass any gun control legislation?" would be appropriate for skeptics because it matches Trump's claim. Instead you are asking why? Trump didn't say anything about why. You added the why. – BobTheAverage Feb 20 '18 at 00:35
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    Democrats never had a **filibuster-proof** majority in the Senate. That's the relevant consideration here, not "veto-proof". – Nate Eldredge Feb 20 '18 at 01:16
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    Yep, I mistakenly said "veto-proof" when I meant "filibuster-proof". They only had that for about 6 months in 2009 and early 2010. – Daniel R Hicks Feb 20 '18 at 01:45
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    Gun control laws would require a constitutional amendment, and the Democrats had nowhere near the Congressional supermajorities and state legislatures necessary to pass one. And SCOTUS has [already shown its willingness to uphold the Second Amendment and overturn simple legislative processes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald_v._City_of_Chicago). – Ben Voigt Feb 20 '18 at 02:08
  • I just updated the question so that I believe it's appropriate for this site. If so, can an admin please reopen? – Liron Yahdav Feb 20 '18 at 03:08
  • It's still better on politics. Why would you want it on this site? – DJClayworth Feb 20 '18 at 04:29
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    It seemed fitting for this site because I was skeptical of the claim that Dems didn't want gun control. – Liron Yahdav Feb 20 '18 at 04:31
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    *Wanting* some legislation, and *pushing* for some controversial legislation (which is *bound* to put you into the crossfire from the Republicans *and* parts of your own electorate, probably even some of your own senators, not only for the current term but for many years to come) is two different things. – DevSolar Feb 20 '18 at 09:37
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    @DJClayworth There is a simple factual element to the claim. We can't address motivation, but if the democrats tried to pass legislation and it failed because of insufficient votes to pass it, that is factual and perfectly on topic here. And this seems to be the claim made by Trump. – matt_black Feb 20 '18 at 10:02
  • The factual element claim is a simple matter of looking up the records. One of the main points of separating sites to different areas of expertise. The Politics site has experts in politics. We don't necessarily. It's the same reasons we migrate 'simple factual' questions about math to the Math site. – DJClayworth Feb 20 '18 at 14:52
  • Could this question be reopened if the question about motivation was removed and the question focused on "did they have the chance?" and "did they try?" instead? – SQB Feb 23 '18 at 11:26
  • They didn't _really_ have both the House and the Senate [except for 4 months](https://www.ohio.com/akron/pages/when-obama-had-total-control-of-congress) from late September 2009 to early February 2010. The [Gun Show Loophole Colsing Act of 2009](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_Show_Loophole_Closing_Act_of_2009) was proposed during the 111th US Congress, before those 4 months, but that's as far as it went. So yes, they had a (small) window of opportunity, but used that mainly to pass healthcare reform. "Not wanting" is up to anyone's interpretation. – SQB Mar 01 '18 at 10:46

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