House panel swiftly takes up gun bill after mass shootings
WASHINGTON » The House is swiftly working to put its stamp on gun legislation in response to mass shootings in Texas and New York by 18-year-old assailants who used semi-automatic rifles to kill 31 people, including 19 children.
Debate on the legislation came as the the White House announced that President Joe Biden would give a primetime speech about the shootings and his plans to press Congress “to pass commonsense laws to combat the epidemic of gun violence that is taking lives every day.”
Partisan positions were clear at a Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday on legislation that would raise the age limit for purchasing semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21. The bill also would make it a federal offense to import, manufacture or possess large-capacity magazines and would create a grant program to buy back such magazines.
It also builds on the administration’s executive action banning fast-action “bump-stock” devices and “ghost guns” that are assembled without serial numbers.
The Democratic legislation, called the Protecting Our Kids Act, was quickly added to the legislative docket after last week’s school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., promised in a letter to Democratic colleagues Thursday that the House will vote on the measure next week, and she promised other votes in the weeks ahead, including on a bill to to create an AMBER Alert-style notification during a mass shooting. Pelosi also pledged a hearing on a bill banning military-style semiautomatic rifles.
But with Republicans nearly all in opposition, the House action will mostly be symbolic, merely putting lawmakers on record about gun control ahead of this year’s elections. The Senate is taking a different course, with a bipartisan group striving toward a compromise on gun safety legislation that can win enough GOP support to become law. Those talks are making “rapid progress,” according to Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of the Republican negotiators.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, defended his chamber’s proposals as popular with most Americans. He dismissed Republican criticism.
“You say that it is too soon to take action? That we are ‘politicizing’ these tragedies to enact new policies?” Nadler said. “It has been 23 years since Columbine. Fifteen years since Virginia Tech. Ten years since Sandy Hook. Seven years since Charleston. Four years since Parkland and Santa Fe and Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.”
“Too soon? My friends, what the hell are you waiting for?”
Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the committee, said no one wants another tragedy. But he insisted the House bill would do nothing to stop mass shootings.
“We need to get serious about understanding why this keeps happening. Democrats are always fixated on curtailing the rights of lawabiding citizens rather than trying to understand why this evil happens,” Jordan said. “Until we figure out the why, we will always mourn losses without facing the problem. Our job is to figure out the why.”
A chief feature of the House bill requires those buying semi-automatic weapons to be at least 21. Only six states require someone to be at least 21 years old to buy rifles and shotguns. The shooters in Uvalde and Buffalo, New York, both were 18 and used an AR-15-style weapon.
Rep. Steve Cohen, DTenn., said that it should be a red flag when an 18-yearold wants to buy “an assault weapon.”
“That’s what they want on their 18th birthday is an assault weapon? They’ve got a problem, which means we’ve got a problem, which means those 19 kids and their parents and those two teachers have a problem, forever,” Cohen said, referring to the victims in Uvalde.