TheChat: Claire McCaskill speaks out for gun background checks

Good morning.

▪ “Why should we have massive categories of gun purchases in this country without a background check?” — Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, criticizing Republicans for opposing background checks for gun purchases at gun shows.

McCaskill was taking part in a Democratic filibuster aimed at advancing gun control legislation. Democrats won at least a partial victory after GOP leaders promised votes on a couple of gun-related measures. Is the tide turning on this issue? Maybe, slowly. (link via johncombest.com).

▪ “The office of attorney general is not the place for on-the-job training for a person who has never tried a case or argued an appeal.” — Missouri state Rep. Jay Barnes, a Jefferson City Republican, questioning the qualifications of fellow Republican Josh Hawley to be the state’s next attorney general.

Barnes is backing state Sen. Kurt Schaefer for attorney general in a primary race that’s may be the state’s nastiest. Hawley’s camp called the letter a political ploy unworthy of a response.

▪ “You’re going to see quite a bit of churning, but not a large reduction in numbers in the end.” — Jeannette Mott Oxford, executive director of Empower Missouri, which advocates on behalf of low-income Missourians, on the big drop in poor people receiving temporary cash benefits.

Mott Oxford’s point: Removing people from the rolls may save money initially. But many will return after they address the issues that led to their removal.

▪ “Barack Obama is directly responsible for it because when he pulled everybody out of Iraq, al Qaeda went to Syria, became ISIS, and ISIS is what it is today thanks to Barack Obama's failures -- utter failures, by pulling everybody out of Iraq, thinking that conflicts end just because you leave.” — Arizona Sen. John McCain blaming President Obama for the massacre in Orlando.

McCain, who lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential election, later insisted that he had misspoke, saying it was not the president himself who was personally responsible, but his “security decisions.”