Guttenburg pushes checks for ammunition

Wasserman Shultz: ‘Jaime’s law will close this ammo loophole’

Joined in Washington by Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz reintroduced legislation on Wednesday that would require background checks for most ammunition purchases.

The bill is being called “Jaime’s Law,” in honor of Guttenberg’s daughter.

“We will relentlessly push to make sure Jaime’s Law becomes the law of the land,” Wasserman Schultz said at a Washington, D.C., news conference that was livestreamed via Twitter.

It’s already illegal for convicted felons, domestic abusers and dangerously mentally ill people to buy firearms and ammunition. Background checks also are required for some firearms purchasers, but nothing prevents anyone from buying ammunition.

“Jaime’s law will close this ammo loophole,” Wasserman Schultz said. If the pre-purchase check for ammunition becomes law, she said, “the key instrument that actually makes the weapon deadly, ammunition, you can’t get because we’ve implemented and

required a background check.”

The legislation wouldn’t require background checks for people who buy ammunition at shooting ranges or hunting camps and intend to use it at those locations.

Guttenberg said he believes it is possible to pass legislation to curb gun violence. “Yes we can. Yes we will. 40,000 people [killed by gun violence] per year is unacceptable in a civilized society. We can’t stop it all. But we can sure do better than that.”

Last month, the Democratic-controlled House passed two bills to enhance background checks on firearms purchasers. There’s no indication the Republican-controlled Senate will consider those measures — or that the House or Senate will act on the ammunition background check idea.

Guttenberg said he was “counting on” the House to pass the measure, though he said he was “realistic about what could possibly happen” in the Senate. His message to senators: “Pass this legislation or we’ll flip the Senate on this issue.”

Wasserman Schultz introduced the same measure last year, and it didn’t pass.

She is sponsoring it again with 54 members of the House. U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, Democrats from Connecticut, where 26 people were killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012, are sponsoring the legislation in the Senate.