WASHINGTON — The bloody attack in San Bernardino, Calif., last week revived fears about threats from groups such as the Islamic State in America and also fused two fraught policy debates central to the presidential contest: gun control and how far to go in the fight against terrorism.
With domestic gun violence becoming increasingly common, Democrats have used the latest attack, apparently by supporters of the Islamic State, to frame the issue as a matter of national security. The tactic has put Republican presidential candidates on the spot and created some fissures within the field as those seeking the nomination try to balance defending Second Amendment rights and protecting the public.
On Sunday night, President Obama called for new restrictions that would prevent suspects who are on no-fly lists from getting access to guns, forcing Republicans to explain why potential terrorists should be able to buy weapons of war.
“What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semiautomatic weapon?” Mr. Obama asked in a prime-time address to the nation. “This is a matter of national security.”
The proposal, which has divided lawmakers along party lines, failed in the Senate last week, with just one Democrat and one Republican persuaded to switch sides on the issue. The four senators who are running for president — Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz — all voted against the measure.
Mr. Rubio, of Florida, cast the idea as another example of Democrats’ having too much faith in government, posing a threat to due process and potentially violating the rights of law-abiding citizens.
“The majority of people on the no-fly list are oftentimes people that basically just have the same name as somebody else, who don’t belong on the no-fly list,” Mr. Rubio said on CNN on Sunday, estimating that the majority of the more than 700,000 people on the list did not belong on it. “These are everyday Americans that have nothing to do with terrorism.”
Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, agreed with Mr. Rubio. He noted that Senator Ted Kennedy had been stopped from flying on multiple occasions because of problems with such lists and suggested that relying on a no-fly list would do more to slow innocent passengers than it would to stop would-be terrorists.
“This is not a list that you can be certain of,” Mr. Bush told ABC. “The first impulse of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is to have gun control.”
Proposals to impose any restrictions on guns have been a nonstarter in Congress in recent years, despite the increasing prevalence of mass shootings. Opponents of gun control argue that gun laws will not deter people intent on committing murder, and they assert that it is safer to be armed in a dangerous world.
But not all of the Republicans seeking the White House were so certain that gun rights should apply to people who the government thinks could be plotting terrorist attacks. For candidates who have claimed that they would be the toughest against terrorists, the idea of letting homegrown radicals easily buy guns was a concern.
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who called Mr. Obama’s proposal “cynical,” allowed on Monday in an interview with The Weekly Standard that “in theory, I don’t have a huge problem” with stopping people on the no-fly list from purchasing guns.
Taking it a step further, Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio characterized imposing gun restrictions on people on the no-fly list as an obvious measure. “Of course, it makes common sense to say that, if you’re on a terrorist watch list, you shouldn’t be able to go out and get a gun,” Mr. Kasich said over the weekend.
And Donald J. Trump, who has been leading the field in most national and state polls for months, said that he also would be open to preventing terrorism suspects from buying firearms.
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