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Happy Wednesday morning.

For this moment – this week, perhaps the rest of this month – the Senate is operating in an unusual political space.

In the long struggle over guns and gun control, there’s finally a window open for a compromise – albeit a small window with room for only a narrow accord.

Why? Because for the first time in a decade, the political incentive structure on guns has shifted.

Democrats are working within the confines of a razor-thin majority in Washington, dropping their calls for big policy changes in favor of small progress.

And some Republicans have accepted that opposing any and all changes to gun laws is both politically and substantively unacceptable.

It has led to an almost head-snapping sense in the Capitol that President Joe Biden may actually get a package of gun-control laws to sign in the next several months, ahead of the midterm elections.

For the last generation, as America has suffered a deadly torrent of gun violence, Democrats and gun-control advocates have insisted the only cure was for Congress to take big steps to keep everyone safe. Reinstate the assault weapons ban. Require universal background checks and outlaw gun shows. Ban high-capacity ammunition clips, bump stocks and “ghost guns.” This, Democrats claimed, was the way to cut gun violence. Half measures were unwelcome.

Through it all, Republicans and gun-rights groups have made the case that guns aren’t the problem, rather gun-control laws are. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” the NRA’s director claimed a decade ago after a gunman murdered 20 school children. And the right has been winning this political struggle.

The assault weapons ban expired. “Open carry” and “constitutional carry” – the ability for gun owners to carry around a concealed weapon without a special permit — are now the law in more than half of states. Sales of AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles soared. Overall, more than 40 million guns were sold in the United States during 2020 and 2021. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, “from 2010 to 2020, the number of guns produced every year doubled.”

Republicans have held up the Second Amendment as a shield even as dead bodies piled up from San Bernardino, Calif., to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. GOP lawmakers and gun rights groups say the country isn’t enforcing existing gun laws, so new ones are unnecessary. Legislating in the wake of tragedy, they frequently add, is unwise.

Yet after nightmarish massacres in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, N.Y., a bipartisan group of senators have set aside these long-held orthodoxies. At least for the time being, both sides are in a race to look reasonable.

Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.), are willing to take a half step in the name of progress. And Republicans, led by Sens. John Cornyn (Texas), Thom Tillis (N.C) and Susan Collins (Maine), are at the table in search of a deal. Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is open to an agreement.

On Tuesday, McConnell declared he wanted to find a solution that “directly relates to the problem that brought this issue to the fore one more time.” Our friends Manu Raju of CNN and Marianne LeVine and Burgess Everett of Politico reported Tuesday that McConnell “has personally expressed openness” to raising the age limit for buying semi-automatic assault rifles from 18 to 21. A majority of Senate Republicans would object, so this won’t go anywhere.

The provisions under serious consideration right now include: incentivizing states to create red flag laws, expanding background checks to include consideration of juvenile records, bolstering the nation’s mental health network and strengthening the licensing system for “hobbyists” who sell firearms or component parts to guns.

Both sides have strong political incentives underpinning their current stances.

Democrats are saddled with an unpopular president and a legislative agenda that’s been stalled for months. They have the opportunity to make headway on an urgent issue in the 50-50 Senate.

Republicans know some of their standard lines on guns sound hollow under the current circumstances. An 11-year-old who “smeared herself with her murdered friend’s blood to play dead and stay alive during last month’s mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde” will be testifying before a House panel today.

House members will then vote on a broad gun-control package that’s likely to get no GOP support — and won’t go anywhere in a 50-50 Senate. But the House will have done something.

Of course, there’s legitimate political concern over what a compromise proposal means for Senate Democrats. They are letting a gun-control bill pass without the major gun-control positions they’ve long sought. In the mind of some Democrats, they’d be giving Republicans political cover for doing the absolute minimum to address a national crisis.

The key here is this: For the moment, that’s just fine with most Senate Democrats. Something is better than nothing. Anything.

→	Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio):

→	Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.):

→	Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.):

→	Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.):

→	Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.):

→	Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii):

Of course, there’s a theory bouncing around in Democratic circles that if Republicans pass gun control once, they’d be willing to do it again at some point. We find that to be unlikely. Most Democrats know that. But they think that small steps are better than no steps at all.

Also happening today: The House Oversight and Reform Committee will hold what’s certain to be a wrenching hearing on gun violence. Witnesses include Zeneta Everhart, whose son survived the Buffalo massacre; Roy Guerrero, a pediatrician from Uvalde, Texas; Miah Cerrillo, a fourth grader who survived the massacre in Uvalde; and Felix and Kimberly Rubio, the parents of Lexi Rubio, who died in Uvalde. The Rubios will be appearing remotely, while the rest of the witnesses will be testifying in person.

Oversight Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) will open the hearing with this:

Also happening today: The New Dem Coalition will hear from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today at their weekly lunch.

– Jake Sherman, Heather Caygle and John Bresnahan

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