Wednesday saw a renewed emphasis on gun control on Capitol Hill as the Senate Judiciary Committee discussed mass shootings and the House Judiciary Committee considered an assault weapons ban for the first time in 20 years.
While Republican colleagues argued that doing so would reduce community safety by leaving law-abiding citizens unarmed in hazardous situations, the Democratic-controlled House panel was debating legislation that would ban specific assault-style rifles like the ones used in a recent spate of mass shootings.
A second bill that would remove the immunity of gun manufacturers and enable them to be sued for the improper use of firearms is being discussed in the House Judiciary.
Even if both legislation pass the House, it seems improbable that they will pass the Senate.
Will our Republican colleagues decide to support the tools of mass murderers’ trade? Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the committee’s chairman, questioned.
A federal assault weapons prohibition was requested by Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering in the Senate.
When a shooter opened fire on a Fourth of July parade in her community, there were seven fatalities and numerous wounded.
Rotering described the terrible events she saw that day.
My phone suddenly flashed a picture of a young child holding a blanket while crying.
This was a child, whose? People were sheltering in an underground garage and wondered why this missing child wasn’t being searched for.
Later, we discovered that the two-year-old Aidan McCarthy with dried blood on his socks, footwear, and legs was Aidan.
He had been rescued after being discovered beneath his father’s corpse.
The fact that his mother and father had both been killed at the parade meant that no one was desperately searching for him.
“You must enact a national assault weapons prohibition.”
The time has come to start saving lives, according to Rotering.
Sen. Ted Cruz used the shooting at the Greenwood Mall on Sunday night to argue for gun rights.
In that incident, 22-year-old Elisjsha Dicken, who was legally armed while shopping with his girlfriend, overpowered 20-year-old Douglas Sapirman, who used an AR-15-style rifle to fire 24 rounds, killing three people and injuring two others.
It is simple to understand why disarming law-abiding citizens leads to criminals breaking the law.
The law-abiding citizens are powerless to defend themselves because they have the guns, Cruz claimed.
If Mr. Dicken had not been present and had not exercised his Second Amendment right, “many more lives would have been lost in Indiana that day.”
Data from the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training at Texas State University shows that incidents in which an armed civilian neutralises a mass shooter are uncommon.
In 22 of the at least 434 active shooter situations that occurred between 2000 and 2021, a bystander with a gun shot the assailant.
Rotering claimed that in Highland Park, where the shooter was concealed on a building’s roof, “a nice guy with a rifle would have had no impact on the shooter.”
The mayor of Highland Park continued, “And we had good individuals with firearms on site who are trained, who got there in seconds, and it was just too hard to tell where he was.”
Gun control advocate and Stoneman Douglas shooting survivor David Hogg was hauled out of the meeting on the House side after interjecting with a vehement tirade.
The ‘open’ southern border was causing gunfire in South Texas neighbourhoods, according to Reps.
Matt Gaetz of Florida and Chip Roy of Texas, and cartels were ‘increasingly armed and dangerous.’
Hogg yelled, “You are repeating the arguments of a mass shooter.” Hey, guess what? These weapons are imported from the US!
You are repeating the arguments of a mass shooter; they are not coming from Mexico.
He said, “You are continuing this brutality,” as a staff member seized his elbow and hauled him outside.
The senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, responded that the Democrats’ ban would render “millions of weapons in the homes of law-abiding Americans” illegal.
He suggested that they try to remove the Second Amendment instead—a futile endeavour.
The 10-year prohibition on assault weapons came to an end in 2004, and attempts to extend it have so far been unsuccessful.
The most comprehensive gun reform plan passed by Congress in 30 years was signed into law by President Biden at the end of June.
The bill included incentives for states to pass so-called red flag laws and closed the so-called “boyfriend loophole,” which allowed those convicted of domestic abuse to be prohibited from owning guns even for dating partners rather than just spouses or live-in partners.
However, many Democrats found the bill to be too narrow.
The bill increased background checks for anyone between the ages of 18 and 21, but it did not outright prohibit the sale of assault-style weapons to people under 21 as many members of Congress had hoped.