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The chamber approved on Wednesday some of the most aggressive gun control measures taken on Capitol Hill in years – including raising the minimum age for the purchase of most semi-automatic rifles to 21 and banning high-capacity ammunition cartridges – as Washington seeks a firm response of the recent high-profile mass shootings.
The vote was held with 223 against 204 just hours after a House committee heard frightening testimony from a young survivor of the May 24 shooting in Uwalde, Texas, as well as the parents of a victim and a pediatrician who responded to the tragedy that killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers.
Five Republicans joined most Democrats in support of the bill. Two Democrats voted no.
“Somewhere there is a mother who listens to our testimony and thinks, ‘I can’t even imagine their pain,’ without knowing that our reality will one day be hers unless we act now,” said Kimberly Rubio, the mother. of 10-year-old Lexi Rubio, who was killed in the attack.
Post a policy now: Victims of gun violence testify at House
However, the vote in the House of Representatives will be more than an exercise in political communication due to the Republicans’ strong opposition to significant new arms restrictions. This has left hopes for a bipartisan deal that could be signed in the hands of a small group of senators studying much more modest changes to federal gun laws. These talks continued on Wednesday, with the hope of concluding a deal in the coming days.
However, Democrats said the House of Representatives vote this week was needed to show Americans that more can be done to prevent not only incidents of mass casualties such as last month’s killings in Buffalo and Uwalde, but and the hundreds of less deadly mass shootings and daily incidents of gun violence that have long plagued America.
“Even if our Senate colleagues do not pass these exact bills, I will tell you what this process we are going through will do and why our efforts here are worthwhile: This process will unequivocally show where each of us is. the consequence of this indescribable tragedy, ”said MP Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), adding that the votes would send a clear message to Senate negotiators.
Republicans attacked the bills as a frivolous, partisan effort that would violate Americans’ constitutional rights. At a news conference Wednesday, spokesman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) called them an effort to “destroy the Second Amendment.”
The bill, which is being considered Wednesday, Jordan said, “briefly tells law-abiding Americans when they can buy firearms, what kind of firearms they can get, and where and how they should keep them in their own oath home.” – a direct attack on the rights of the Second Amendment. “
Hopes for a quick arms deal fade as Senate negotiators beg for patience
In addition to the minimum age measure and the ban on high-capacity magazines, House of Representatives legislation passed on Wednesday includes proposals that would curb arms trafficking, create new safekeeping requirements for gun owners and codify enforcement orders that prohibit the untraceable “ghost weapons” as well as “butt” devices that allow the semi-automatic rifle to mimic machine gun fire.
Deputies in the House of Representatives will vote Thursday on a separate bill dealing with red-flag laws that could allow authorities to keep weapons out of the hands of people thought to pose a threat to themselves or their communities. The bill combines legislation from Republican Representative Salud Karbahal (D-California), which will create a federal grant program to encourage states to pass their own red-flag laws with a measure by Republican Lucy Macbeth (D-Ga.) That would allow federal courts to issue red flag orders, which are officially known as “extreme risk protection orders”.
Last year, the House of Representatives passed two bills on federal inspections – one that will extend their applicability to all commercial sales, including gun shows and online transactions, and another that will extend the deadline for completing inspections. Neither of them came to the Senate to vote because of opposition to the GOP.
The Senate is exploring a narrower package, which could include legislation encouraging states to set up red flag systems, modestly expanding past checks to include juvenile files, and funding for mental health programs and school security improvements. .
Senator John Cornin (R-Tex.), A leading Republican negotiator, quoted “steady progress” on Wednesday, but declined to say when a deal could be reached and recommended not setting “artificial deadlines”. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (DN.Y.) has expressed a desire to speed up negotiations so that recent clashes do not fade from the public eye.
“But I feel a sense of urgency and a desire to actually do things,” Cornin said. “Here, if you know that people have a will, there is a way, and I believe that there is a collective bipartisan will.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) said on Wednesday that she was “praying” for the Senate talks and suggested that her house was ready to accept any package the negotiators could agree on.
“We hope that we can make some progress, because for all of us who have met again and again with survivors of gun violence – some come again and again to see what is happening, others are new to this a terrible club that none of us want to be a member of – they just want something to happen, “she said.
Each of the Uwalde elders who testified before the House of Representatives’ Oversight and Reform Commission on Wednesday asked Congress to take action, as did Zeneta Everhart, the mother of a young man injured in the Buffalo shooting.
The hearing included a video of the shooting of Uwalde by survivor Mia Serilo, 11, who described wiping the blood of her dead classmate on herself to trick the shooter into believing she was dead. She asked for “security” and said, “I don’t want this to happen again.”
Asked by an interviewer if she thought this would happen again, she nodded.
What we know about the victims of the school shooting in Texas
“I want something to change not only for our children, but for every child in the world, because schools are no longer safe,” said Mia’s father, Miguel Serilo. “Something really needs to change.”
Rubio, the mother whose 10-year-old child was killed, was more outspoken, urging Congress to raise the minimum age for buying weapons of attack, lift immunity of gun manufacturers from product liability lawsuits, and pass red flag laws. and stricter inspections. So was pediatrician Roy Guerrero, who described young bodies “scattered by bullets fired at them, beheaded, whose flesh was torn.”
“Storage [children] safe from bacteria and brittle bones, I can do, but to make sure our children are protected from weapons is the job of our politicians and leaders, ”he said. “In this case, you are the doctors, and our country is the patient. We lie on the operating table, littered with bullets, like the children from Rob Elementary School and many other schools. We are bleeding and you are not there.
The testimony came when the Ministry of Justice on Wednesday outlined the review it will conduct at the Uwalde massacre. Officials said the assessment by the Community-Oriented Police Services Service would look at policies, training, communications and tactics, as well as post-incident response, but would not be a criminal investigation.
“Nothing can undo the pain inflicted on the relatives of the victims, the survivors and the entire Uwalde community,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland. “But the Ministry of Justice can and will use its experience and independence to assess what has happened and give directions for progress.”
At the end of the hearing, Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn B. Maloney (DN.Y.) said her committee intends to continue an investigation focused on the firearms industry – “to get to the bottom of how much these companies make money from selling of military weapons and how they sell these weapons to civilians. “
Maloney said the commission had already received “disturbing” written responses from gun manufacturers, and said he intended to call their leaders to testify.
“It is clear that they are reaping huge profits from assault weapons used in the mass shootings of innocent civilians,” she said.
In the hall and elsewhere around the Capitol on Wednesday, Republicans expressed sympathy for the victims, but there were no indications that they intended to change their views on the right to bear arms. Representative member Andrew C. Clyde (R-Ga.), Owner of a gun shop, said during the hearing that the tragedies “emphasize the need for additional school security” and condemned Democrats for seeking to limit firearms.
“Although any loss of life is a tragedy, no one should arm or politicize these heinous acts to punish law-abiding citizens,” he said.
Representative Richard Hudson (RN.C.), a leading supporter of gun rights among Republicans in the House of Representatives, promoted legislation at a news conference Wednesday that will invest billions of federal dollars in school security programs but will not affect gun laws. Republican leaders forced a vote on Hudson’s bill Wednesday as an alternative to the Democratic Party’s gun law; he failed along party lines.
Hudson accused Democrats of “using these tragedies to continue their radical gun control program” and criticized Pelosi and other leaders for inviting victims to testify and calling for measures that could not pass Congress.
“The bills on the floor this week would do nothing to stop any of these tragedies and will never become law,” he said. “They use the pain of these people, these children, these parents, to pursue their radical interests, and I say shame on them.
During a debate, Representative Thomas Massi (R-Ky.) Called on staff “to stop advertising our schools as soft targets … and that these children …
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