New laws not likely
Democrats say they stand behind students demanding lawmakers act to prevent shootings
GOP leaders reject tighter gun control.
WASHINGTON – Republican leaders in Congress rejected calls for tighter gun restrictions Tuesday despite an in-person pitch from Florida high school students leading a newly energized gun control movement.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said Republicans would focus on law enforcement failures, not tighter gun control, in the wake of the latest mass shooting, which left 17 children and educators dead at a Florida school Feb. 14.
“There was a colossal breakdown in the system,” Ryan, R-Wis., said at a news conference. He cited inaction by a deputy stationed outside the school and tips called in to federal and local law enforcement officials about the alleged shooter, Nikolas Cruz, which raised concerns that the 19-year-old planned such a rampage.
Students who survived the shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., met with lawmakers across the Capitol — including in a 20-minute closed-door meeting with the speaker and an emotional session with House Democrats.
The students-turned-activists have called for a ban on assault weapons, a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips and wider background checks, among other steps. Many Democrats support those measures and said Congress should act to prevent another mass shooting.
“There’s no daylight between the Parkland students and really the overwhelming majority of the Democratic caucus,” Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democratic caucus, said after the students spoke to the conference. “It was inspiring to have them here today. ... We took energy from each other. I think that was important.”
The students did not take questions from reporters Tuesday. Rep. Ted Deutch, a Democrat who represents the Florida district where the shooting occurred, said their message was simple:
“They don’t want to simply have a conversation. They want action taken to try to prevent what happened at their school from happening anyplace else,” Deutch said after the meeting with Ryan.
Deutch said Ryan listened to what the students had to say, and the two sides “had a good discussion about the Constitution,” including the Second Amendment. Deutch said the students “were more interested in understanding when these things could be brought to the floor.”
“He expressed a willingness in moving quickly, at least where there is some consensus,” Deutch said. “It’s unclear to me where that consensus is.”
At his news conference earlier in the day, Ryan said gun control was not likely to be part of any legislative response to the shooting.
“We shouldn’t be banning guns for law-abiding citizens,” he said. “We should be focusing on making sure that citizens who should not get guns in the first place don’t get those guns.”
Ryan and other Republicans touted a House-passed bill that would create incentives for states and federal agencies to upload more data to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, NICS. The bill, called “Fix NICS,” has bipartisan support and came as a response to the mass shooting at a Texas church in November. In that instance, the gunman’s violent history would have precluded him from buying a gun, but authorities failed to report it to the federal background check system.
The House passed its version of Fix NICS in December, but GOP leaders combined that measure with a controversial bill to expand the right to carry concealed weapons, the top legislative priority of the National Rifle Association. Democrats rejected the concealedcarry measure as a non-starter.
In the Senate, John Cornyn, R-Texas, an author of both measures, pushed for a vote on a stand-alone NICS bill.
“Let’s do what we can immediately to pass Fix NICS and build from there,” Cornyn said on the Senate floor Tuesday.