House passes gun control measure and expands background checks on sales

The House separately prepared to vote on extending the deadline for background checks from three days to 10 days, giving law enforcement agencies more time to investigate individuals before they can purchase weapons.

Both gun measures passed by the House in 2019, after Democrats regained control of the chamber in the midterm elections, but languished in the Senate when then-majority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) Refused to schedule votes. .

The prospects of the legislation in the now democratically controlled Senate are uncertain, but the effort could speed up the party’s attempt to change the rules in the tightly divided chamber to make it easier to pass bills.

“We know what to do to help protect millions of Americans,” said Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D., California). “I proudly support these accounts because the evidence is clear that they will make our communities safer and save lives.”

Republican opponents said the gun bills would impose bureaucratic burdens on law-abiding gun owners without addressing the ways that guns fall into the hands of those who misuse guns.

Opponents also fear that background checks are aimed at establishing a national registry that the federal government could later use to take weapons from gun owners, although the legislation prohibits the creation of a national registry.

“This bill creates a de facto gun registry by involving the federal government in every gun transfer, including private transfers and gifts, or how else will we enforce these requirements?” said Rep. Bob Good (R., Va.) “To my Democrat friends who suggest conservatives and gun owners are paranoid about a national registry, bet we are.”

House Democrats, encouraged by their newfound control of Congress and the White House, have shed a legislative tear following President Biden’s inauguration a month and a half ago, voting on controversial bills on police, voting rights, and now weapons. Small majorities in both the House and Senate motivate House Democrats to pass as quickly as they can as quickly as possible, although many of the bills in the Senate face major setbacks.

Also the driving force was an internal rule for domestic proceedings that postponed until April 1, a requirement that legislation be subject to a hearing and vote in committee. With that deadline weeks away, Democrats rushed through the measures passed last year, including voting rights and police measures, without taking the time to pass the measure through normal comitology procedures and include new members. .

Passing the bills in quick succession could also put pressure on the Senate, where some Democrats want to change the chamber’s procedures to clarify what they see as a sticking point that has abandoned their legislation. Many Democrats have spoken of changing or dropping the 60-vote threshold, known as the filibuster, needed to move most legislation forward. The support of all 50 senators in the Democratic camp would be needed to change the rule, and several have said they do not support such a move.

The two guns pay for a vote and deal with different aspects of gun ownership. One measure would mark the most important gun control measure in decades by requiring buyers to be vetted for almost all private sales online and on firearms shows, and making it illegal to hand over and give guns to friends or family members or go through and comply in other private transactions without background checks record keeping requirements. Currently, federal laws require the controls only for sale by federally authorized dealers, although some states have added their own requirements.

The other would extend to 10 business days from three, the amount of time firearms transactions could be delayed pending a completed background check through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The system administered by the FBI runs questions to determine whether a buyer is disqualified from possession of a weapon.

The system was broken when nine people were shot in 2015 during a Bible study meeting at a historically black church, where gunman Dylann Roof was able to buy a gun after his background check spanned three days, allowing him to take it home. A past drug detention should have kept him from buying the gun.

Congress has not made major changes to federal gun laws in recent years, even when some high-profile shootings targeted lawmakers, including then-Arizona Democratic Congressman Gabby Giffords in 2011 and then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R., La .) in 2017.

After shooting twenty children and six adults in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, a bill to extend background checks to all online sales and sales at firearms shows narrowly failed in the Senate in 2013.

Bipartisan lawmakers have also pushed to prevent suspected terrorists from buying firearms by banning individuals on the government’s “no-fly” list, but a series of proposals all fell short in 2016 following the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida.

Congress stopped a provision in a spending bill signed by then-President Donald Trump in March 2018 to strengthen compliance with the national background check system for the purchase of firearms. The measure encouraged states and federal agencies, including the military, to submit criminal convictions to the system. Federal law requires agencies to submit relevant data, but at the state level, compliance is voluntary unless mandated by state law or federal funding requirements.

—Kristina Peterson contributed to this article.

Write to Siobhan Hughes at [email protected]