Kelsey Carolan and Elizabeth Crisp, The Hill
House Democrats aren’t letting recess get in the way of sending gun control legislation to the floor as soon as possible following the school shooting massacre in Uvalde, Texas last week, which killed 19 children and two teachers.
The House Judiciary Committee will meet for an emergency meeting Thursday to markup an omnibus bill including proposals to curb gun trafficking, promote the safe storage of firearms and raise the purchase age for certain semi-automatic rifles.
Judiciary Committee vice chair Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) knows the odds that Democrats are up against in the Senate, which hasn’t passed any of the House-cleared bills on gun control since the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting due to Republican opposition.
But she told NotedDC there’s hope for bipartisanship this time around, saying she believes President Biden is the best person to lead the fight. The last two times she spoke with him before the shooting, they discussed finding solutions to gun violence.
“I was a teacher. I had students who suffered from gun violence at LaSalle University,” Dean said, saying she “took offense” to Republicans’ proposed solution of arming teachers.
“The gruesomeness with which people are wounded as a result of these weapons is something that you would only fear seeing in a war zone,” Dean said. “We’re seeing that in schools.”
A bipartisan group of senators met Tuesday for ongoing negotiations on possible bills, but there’s skepticism that Democrats will get 10 Republicans on board with any proposal, including background checks.
Biden also said Tuesday he will “meet with Congress on guns.”
Dean said that when she knew the Senate wouldn’t pass universal background checks in 2019, after one of the times the House did, she asked the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) what to do with that feeling of disappointment.
“Do not give up,” Lewis told her, Dean remembered. “At this horrific moment, I pray this is the breakthrough.”
The Hill’s Mike Lillis outlines the specifics in the bill.
See full article here.
