Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., conducts her weekly news conference within the Capitol Visitor Center on Thursday, May 19, 2022.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that lawmakers will vote on sweeping gun control bills next week in response to a series of horrifying mass shootings within the U.S. which have left dozens dead.
While several bills are expected to clear the Democratic House — including a bill that will raise the legal age at which an individual could purchase an assault rifle to 21 from 18 — Pelosi acknowledged in a “Dear Colleague” letter the slim probabilities of many pieces of that laws passing within the Senate.
“Saving our youngsters can and should be a unifying mission for our nation,” she wrote. “To all those within the Congress who would stand in the best way of saving lives: your political survival is insignificant in comparison with the survival of our youngsters. We won’t rest until the job is finished.”
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Leading the gun control legislating within the Home is Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the chair of the Judiciary Committee. He and his deputies are scrambling to pass an omnibus bill, a mixture of varied gun bills often called the Protecting Our Children Act, out of committee before day’s end.
That collection of bills would raise the purchasing age for semiautomatic weapons from 18 to 21, outlaw high-capacity magazines and bump stocks for civilian use, and impose stronger gun storage requirements to guard children from accidental shootings.
The laws will move from the Judiciary Committee to the broader House floor, where Pelosi and other Democrats will likely pass it to be sent along to the Senate, where essentially the most viable bipartisan talks are underway.
Lots of the House reforms are opposed by Senate Republicans, who’ve the ability to dam laws from advancing with the specter of a filibuster in that chamber. Senate Democrats, led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, would wish to influence about 10 Republicans to sign on to any gun safety policy if it has any hope of creating its approach to President Joe Biden.
That is why, as a substitute of the sweeping actions proposed by the House laws, talks between Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and a handful of moderate Republicans have focused on bulked-up background checks and red flags laws.
