House lawmakers debate gun control bill as mass shootings rage on

Partisan wrangling dominated Thursday’s hourslong hearing as lawmakers’ tense rhetoric and repeated finger-pointing underscored the difficulty of getting gun control legislation through a deeply divided Congress.

Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the committee, accused Democrats of rushing to achieve a political win and curtail Second Amendment rights, a criticism that’s been popular among Republicans rebuffing calls for gun control.

“What we’re doing here is just designed to appeal to Democratic primary voters. The bill won’t make your school safer. It will hamper the rights of law abiding citizens and it will do nothing to stop mass shootings. We need to get serious about understanding why this keeps happening,” Jordan said.

Nadler preemptively rejected Jordan’s criticisms in his opening statement, noting that conversations about gun control legislation have been decades in the making.

“You say it’s too soon to take action, that we are politicizing these tragedies to enact new policies. It has been 23 years since Columbine, 15 years since Virginia Tech, 10 years since Sandy Hook, seven years since Charleston, four years since Parkland, Santa Fe and the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. It has been three years since El Paso,” Nadler said. “It has been a week since we learned again that gun violence can reach any of our children and grandchildren at any time, and that no number of armed guards can guarantee their safety. It has not even been 24 hours since the last mass shooting and who knows how long until the next one. Too soon, my friends? What the hell are you waiting for?”

Referencing the hours it took to identify the children killed in the Uvalde massacre, Nadler emphasized that regular mass shootings are a uniquely American problem.

“Only in the United States [do] we ask the parents of elementary school children to stand in line so we can match their DNA to the remains of their children, because only the United States is awash with 400 million guns,” Nadler said.

Republican Representative Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin accused Democrats of wanting to “repeal the Second Amendment,” arguing that instead of addressing guns, lawmakers need to “address the family unit, society.”

“The knee-jerk reaction is to always punish law-abiding citizens for the sins of the few. The answer is always to play for more restrictions on the masses instead of holding the individual accountable,” Tiffany said.

Representative Ken Buck of Colorado defended the need for semi-automatic rifles, referencing the ways the high-capacity firearms can be used as hunting weapons.

“In rural Colorado, an AR-15 is a gun of choice for killing raccoons before they get to our chickens. It’s a gun of choice for killing a fox,” Buck said.

In 2020, guns became the leading cause of death among children and teens, according to research by the New England Journal of Medicine analyzing decades of CDC data.

Speaking in front of a poster board collaged with pictures of the children killed in Uvalde, Democratic Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas asserted that the lack of congressional action on gun control is a stain bringing shame on the legislature’s reputation.

“This is the question of whether or not we as Americans are blind,” Lee said. “And I’m calling on all of you to have a sense of humanity, courage, decency. God knows we need action.”

Representative Lucy McBath, a Democrat from Georgia whose 17-year-old son Jordan Davis was murdered in 2012 for playing loud music in his parked car, pleaded for Congress to act on gun control.

“Do we have the courage right here in this body to imagine the phone call parents across Uvalde received last week? A phone call that confirms our fear, our singular fear that ‘My child is dead, that I was unable to protect them.’ Because I know that phone call. Parents across the country know that phone call,” McBath said.

McBath, who became a fierce advocate for gun control in the wake of her son’s killing, said Congress’ inability to act on gun control is taking a toll on young people.

“An entire generation of children are learning that the adults they look up to cannot or will not protect them,” McBath said. 

Republican Representative Greg Steube from Florida, who attended the hearing remotely, argued that part of the legislative proposal banning high-capacity magazines would effectively ban his guns, which cannot use smaller capacity magazines.

Steube made his point by displaying three handguns for the cameras.

As lawmakers inquired about Steube’s location and whether the guns were loaded, he noted “I’m at my house. I can do whatever I want with my guns.”

Partisan tensions mounted during the hearing and Representative Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, grew irritated with Republicans’ critiques of the legislation.

“Are you here for our kids? Or are you here for the killers? Because if you were here for the kids, you would do all you could to As the next school shooting that’s going to happen in America,” Swalwell said.

As lawmakers’ debate over the legislation passed the eight-hour mark, multiple people were shot during a funeral in Racine, Wisconsin.

“As we sit here, and as we fiddle, Rome burns. As our house burns downs, while Rome burns, I for one will not accept it,” Lee said, informing the committee of the Racine shooting, the details of which were unknown at the time of the hearing.

The lengthy congressional hearing wrapped up just as President Joe Biden began his prime-time address in which the president pushed for Congress to pass gun control legislation.

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