Sarah Silbiger / The New York Times
Former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt, stands with lawmakers addressing the need for gun control legislation, outside the Capitol in Washington, Feb. 26, 2019. House Democrats are set to vote on the first gun control legislation to reach the floor in two decades, fulfilling a pledge to take swift action on an issue they once shied away from.
Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2019 | 12:05 a.m.
WASHINGTON — House Democrats are poised this week to adopt legislation requiring background checks for all gun purchasers, the first major expansion of gun control laws in a quarter century and the opening salvo in a broader drive to address an issue that once sharply divided the party.
In back-to-back votes, the House will take up two separate background check measures. On Wednesday it will consider the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, which would require background checks for all firearm sales, including those sold at gun shows and online. On Thursday it will turn to the Enhanced Background Checks Act, which would extend the time allotted for the FBI to conduct background checks.
The action in the House reflects dramatic changes in the political climate over guns that culminated with last year’s midterm elections. A string of mass shootings, coupled with student-led activism after last year’s massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, produced a wave of Democratic candidates — including some from Republican-leaning districts — who ran and won while calling for limits on access to guns.
“It’s a real moment for the nation,” said one of those Democrats, Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia, who began advocating for gun control after her 17-year-old son, Jordan Davis, was shot dead in 2012. “We’re at a critical mass now where families are just saying they’ve had enough.”
Both measures face dim prospects in the Republican-controlled Senate. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Republican, said Tuesday it was “unlikely” the Senate would take them up.
But this week’s House action is still significant. The last time Congress passed major gun control legislation was 1994, when an assault weapons ban was enacted, along with the Brady Bill, which required background checks on most gun sales.
Democrats were punished roundly at the polls that year, with Republicans taking control of Congress and not relinquishing it for 12 years. For years afterward, Democrats were skittish about taking up gun-related bills.
The assault weapons ban expired in 2004, when Congress was under Republican control. When Democrats held the House from 2007 to 2011, no gun legislation was passed.
“There are still differences within our party as to how far we want to go,” Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House Democratic leader, told reporters Tuesday. But Hoyer said he is convinced that the two bills being voted on this week have the support of the “overwhelming majority of the American people.”
Robin Lloyd, the managing director of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, praised House Democrats for prioritizing the measures, noting that just a year ago, the Republican-controlled House tried — but failed — to pass legislation that would have required states to recognize concealed weapons permits issued in other states, effectively creating a national law allowing concealed weapons. That bill is a high priority for the National Rifle Association.
“Now we’re having the opposite conversation, and I do think that demonstrates how quickly this shift has happened,” Lloyd said. “It is a paradigm shift from where we were even 18 months ago.”
House Republicans, however, have been scathing in their criticism of the bills.
“This bill turns law-abiding citizens into criminals and it’s one more step toward federalized gun registration and ultimately gun confiscation,” said Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the Republican whip, who was shot in the hip and gravely wounded in 2017 when a gunman fired on members of the Republican congressional baseball team practicing in Virginia.
Republicans including Scalise argue that expanding background checks would not have prevented many of the mass shootings that have garnered public attention in recent years. Most of those massacres were carried out with guns purchased legally by gunmen who passed background checks.
The bills to expand background checks are the first in what could be a series of measures to address gun violence, said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., who leads a congressional Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. Thompson said the group has a “pretty aggressive schedule” and is bringing in experts to advise on what will reduce gun violence.
McBath, a task force member, said the group is also looking at measures to reduce children’s access to guns, and also “red flag laws” that would give authorities or household members the ability to seek court orders that would prohibit gun purchases by those deemed a risk to themselves or others.
Congress did pass a modest gun-related bill last year, the Fix NICS Act, which required federal agencies and states to do a better job of reporting criminal offenses and other information into the national instant check system, or NICS. And since the Parkland massacre, gun safety advocates have made great strides outside the capital; in 2018, legislators in 26 states and the District of Columbia passed 67 gun safety measures, according to a recent analysis by the Giffords Law Center.
The last time Congress considered major gun safety legislation was in 2013, after the massacre that killed 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
With survivors of mass shootings looking down from the gallery — and amid cries of “Shame on you!” — the Senate at that time fell short of the 60 votes required to break a filibuster on a bipartisan bill similar to the measure the House will take up Wednesday. That bill’s sponsors, Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., did not sound optimistic on Tuesday about the prospects for reviving it.
“I need some help,” Manchin said. “I need some Republican help.”
Toomey said he has been “working to try to find where we could get to consensus.” But, he added, “It’s looking like it’s an uphill battle to get 60 votes.”
Thursday marks the 25th anniversary of the Brady Bill, named for James. Brady, the White House press secretary injured during an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981. That bill took more than six years and seven votes to pass, according to Kris Brown, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which this week is rebranding itself under the name “Brady.” But it did not address gun show sales or sales over the internet, which have exploded since then.
“For us at Brady, it’s a really meaningful and frankly almost emotional moment,” Brown said, referring to the coming House votes.
Under federal law, if a gun consumer does not pass a background check instantly, the FBI has three business days to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to deny a purchase. If they are unable to do so, on the fourth day, the purchaser can return to the dealer and buy a gun.
That system has given rise to the so-called Charleston loophole, which allowed Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who killed nine people at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, to purchase a .45-caliber handgun even though he had previously admitted to drug possession, which should have barred him from obtaining the weapon. The enhanced background checks bill, sponsored by Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the majority whip, would give the FBI 10 days to complete its determination.
“You’ve got a gun safety majority that is there because of the advocacy and the leadership of the young people from Stoneman Douglas who energized their peers both in Florida and around the country,” said Rep. Ted Deutsch, D-Fla., who represents Parkland. “They have helped deliver the gun safety majority in the House. That’s the importance of this moment.”
