The House Thursday began voting to pass a pair of gun control measures that would expand and provide more time for conducting gun background checks.
A bill to expand background checks passed 227-203, with just eight GOP votes in the Democrat-controlled House.
The legislation now heads to the Senate, where the newly empowered Democratic majority plans to bring them to the floor for a vote. The House was also poised to pass a second bill providing more time to conduct background checks.
HOUSE OPENS DEBATE ON DUAL GUN CONTROL BILLS
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said the Senate will vote on the legislation after hearings in the Judiciary Committee.
The expanded background check bill, Schumer said, “will be on the floor of the Senate, and we will see where people stand.”
Schumer added, “Maybe we will get the votes, and if we don’t, we’ll come together with the caucus and figure out how we are going to get this done.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said public sentiment favoring stronger background checks should propel the measure to passage in the Senate, where the 60-vote threshold will require at least some GOP support.
A 2019 Suffolk University poll found that 90% of registered voters support requiring background checks for the purchase of all firearms.
“We hope that with a big strong bipartisan vote we have today that we’ll send it to the Senate, along with the big drumbeat across America, that the change will come,” Pelosi said.
The expanded background check bill would make it illegal to transfer a firearm to another person without a background check performed by a licensed dealer.
The legislation carves out some exceptions for family members and some transfers associated with law enforcement and the military. The bill would also exclude the background check requirement for temporary transfers of firearms “that is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm.”
Democrats also passed a measure that aims to close the “Charleston Loophole” by expanding the window to conduct background checks from three to 10 days.
Rep. Jim Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, introduced the bill following the June 2015 mass shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
The shooter, Dylann Roof, was not eligible to purchase the gun he used to kill nine worshippers in the attack, but he was able to buy the firearm because the background check window had expired and incorrect information was entered into the system.
“By the time they had the right information, he had the gun,” Clyburn, the House majority whip, said Thursday. “All we are saying is give officials time to do the background check.”
Senate Democrats would have to win the support of at least 10 GOP lawmakers to pass the bill if all of their Democrats back the bill. Senate Democrats said Thursday that they see a path to passage with GOP support, in part because of the overwhelming and growing public approval of background checks.
“There are a lot of Republican senators that are thinking about voting on a proposal that allows them to get right on this issue,” Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, said.
If the House legislation fails to pass the Senate, lawmakers may try to negotiate their own bipartisan gun control proposal.
Sens. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, and Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, have proposed a bipartisan background check bill several times over the past nine years. The measure is similar to the House bill but with a broader allowance for transfers and some language expanding legal gun sales.
Most Republicans oppose the two House-passed bills.
Republicans say they support background checks but argue that the measures go too far and infringe on the Second Amendment right to own firearms and would criminalize most gun loans.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Protections against illegal gun purchases are already in place but are poorly executed by federal and local law enforcement, critics of the legislation argued.
“Make no mistake, these bills are created in bad faith,” Rep. Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican, said. “They are partisan shams that rob us of our freedoms.”
