The U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday approved a measure that would allow D.C. residents to arm themselves with semiautomatic weapons in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down the city’s handgun ban.
The move came hours after the D.C. Council attempted to avoid congressional action by lifting the District’s ban on semiautomatic weapons.
But the House bill was more aggressive, as conservative members signaled they had little faith in D.C. to comply with the landmark high court ruling handed down in June.
“Now they are trying to come forward and say just last night, I believe, that they were going to change the law again and that congressional action was unnecessary,” Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., said in reference to the D.C. Council’s action.
“On what basis would we at this point trust the Second Amendment to the D.C. City Council?”
The legislation, offered by freshman Rep. Travis Childers, D-Miss., and backed by the National Rifle Association and the White House, eliminates D.C.’s gun registration processes, erases the prohibition on semiautomatics and allows residents to buy guns out of state.
The final vote was 266 to 152, with 85 Democrats voting in favor.
The bill’s future in the Senate is uncertain.
An aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told The Examiner there is a “long list of things to do in the next week or so, and not a lot of time to do them.”
D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton said she expects “multiple holds” to kill the measure.
District leaders urged the Senate to quash the bill and allow the city to pass its own firearms statutes. Mayor Adrian Fenty called the House measure “unacceptable.”
Council Chairman Vincent Gray accused the House of rushing to “trample on the rights of D.C. taxpayers.”
The debate on the House floor Tuesday night turned heated at times, as liberal Democrats, and Republicans supportive of Home Rule, struggled to convince their colleagues that the District should be allowed to set gun laws that don’t imperil the public.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., called the Childers bill “exceptionally dangerous.”
“You have squandered critical time with the House while the economy is falling down behind you, Wall Street is collapsing,” Norton said, chiding Childers. “Why? Because the NRA told you to do so.”
But it is Congress’ prerogative to “set the laws” in Washington, argued Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga.
“It’s inane to think that somebody can’t have a gun and own that gun and have it loaded,” Broun said.
