Amid bipartisan Senate talks, House Democrats tee up gun control bills for votes

The frenzied activity on Capitol Hill over guns comes in the wake of multiple mass shootings in recent weeks.

A group of Democratic lawmakers from both chambers along with former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ), who was shot in the head at a political event in 2011, gathered at the Gun Violence Memorial installation on the National Mall on Tuesday to push for substantial changes to firearms laws.

Members of the House are also increasing pressure on the Senate to act.

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“We have to make sure that we give you the resolve, give the parents and the communities across this country the resolve to continue to push us,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) said at the event. “That’s why legislation that we are going to have in our package this week is going to continue to put pressure on the United States Senate to at least do something.”

The amplified push for Congress to act comes in the wake of the May 14 shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket that left 10 dead, the Uvalde, Texas, school massacre on May 24 that resulted in the death of 19 children and two teachers, the five killed in a shooting at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, medical facility on June 1, and the mass shooting on Philadelphia’s South Street that led to three fatalities.

The House is scheduled to take up the Protecting Our Kids Act, a compilation of eight gun-related bills, on Wednesday. That includes measures to raise the age limit for buying certain semi-automatic rifles to 21, codify regulations on bump stocks, ban the “import, sale, manufacture, and possession of large-capacity magazines” and increase regulations on the storage of firearms. It would also ban straw purchases of firearms.

While the legislation is likely to pass the House along party lines, it’s expected to face strong pushback from the majority of Republicans, who argue that the bill infringes on law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights. A group of 21 Democratic House members has called on leadership in their party to split up the legislation and vote on the measures individually in an effort to garner more bipartisan support and send bills to the Senate that have a chance at becoming law.

“We fully expect each of these bills will pass in the House, but as we focus on actually delivering for a hurting America, passing each bill individually will ensure that every commonsense measure we are putting forth arrives in the U.S. Senate with the maximum bipartisan support it may garner, recorded through individual votes — giving us the maximum chance of passing gun violence prevention legislation in the Senate and into law,” the group, led by Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), wrote last week.

The House is also expected to take up the Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act, which would nationalize red flag laws by establishing “procedures for federal courts to issue extreme risk protection orders” and remove firearms from people deemed to pose a risk to themselves or others.

In the Senate, negotiators have voiced optimism about their ability to strike a deal that can garner the 60-votes needed to overcome the filibuster, acknowledging that their bill will have a more narrow scope than the House. That means no proposals to ban assault rifles and institute universal background checks for all gun transfers, as advocated by House Democrats.

Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) are leading the negotiations, with Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Susan Collins (R-ME), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) also taking part in the discussions.

“Sometimes when we go away for a week, right, we go home for a week, sensitive negotiations like this fall apart. This week, the opposite is happening because my colleagues went home and heard the same thing I did,” Murphy told MSNBC on Monday. “Parents are frightened to death, they are frightened to death for their kids, and they’re frightened to death that the government isn’t going to be able to respond to the most fundamental concern that parents have: the safety of their kids. I think senators are coming back to town today with a newfound resolve to get something done.”

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Negotiators are weighing areas including increases to mental health resources, strengthening background checks, providing state incentives to implement red flag laws, and enhancing school safety resources.

“What I’m interested in is keeping guns out of the hands of those who, by current law, are not supposed to have them: people with mental health problems, people who have criminal records,” Cornyn said on the Senate floor Monday, adding that they “have to be realistic about what can pass both chambers of Congress and get the president’s signature.”

While the bipartisan group has not yet struck a deal, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) will take action on gun safety measures down the line and is allowing negotiators space to continue their work on hashing out a plan.

“Sen. Murphy asked me to give him a little time. He’s working very closely with some of the senators here and others, and we are giving him some time. We know in the proposal that they have, because so many of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are unwilling to go forward, will not have everything we want,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Tuesday morning.

“But that will only be the beginning,” he said. “We know that the push for gun safety will continue for universal background checks or a ban on assault weapons and set tough red flag laws and so many other things will continue even after these rounds of discussions have terminated, but we’re going to get something passed through this chamber, as long as it will make a tangible difference in gun violence.”

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