House Democrats look to pass gun control legislation by early June

Disapproval from Cruz and other Senate Republicans will likely doom any legislation Nadler and other House Democrats manage to pass. But that isn’t likely to deter Pelosi, who on Wednesday acknowledged the long odds any gun control legislation faces in the Senate.

“We pray that the bipartisan conversations unfolding in the Senate right now will reach agreement on legislation that can save lives and can be acted upon soon,” she wrote in a letter to fellow Democrats.

“On multiple occasions, the Democratic House has passed strong, commonsense gun-violence prevention legislation,” she added. “As we have promised again and again to the courageous survivors of gun violence, we will never stop until the job is done.”

For his part, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said he wants the nation to watch as Senate Republicans vote down gun control legislation. He said he is open to holding votes on bills even if they are virtually guaranteed to fail.

Schumer has also encouraged bipartisan backdoor gun legislation talks led by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. He is working with Republicans including Sens. Pat Toomey, Susan Collins and Rob Portman, who have been open to more modest firearm regulations.

Still, chances of any gun control reforms — large or small — appeared low Tuesday following comments from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Asked in Kentucky for an update on the bipartisan talks, McConnell said the main problem behind the shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde was mental illness, implying that Republicans would be open to legislation to address psychological services.

Democrats dispute the claim that lawmakers need to target mental illness more so than the availability of guns to reduce shooting violence in the U.S. They say that similar rates of mental illness in other developed nations across the globe prove that mental illness alone cannot fully explain the prevalence of mass shootings in the U.S.

McConnell said Senate talks on legislation designed to reduce school shootings are ongoing.

“Yeah, we’re doing it, we had a group led by Senator Cornyn and Senator Murphy on the Democratic side, discussing how we might be able to come together to target the problem, which is mental illness, and school safety,” McConnell said. “We’ll get back at it next week and hope to have some results.”

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/31/house-democrats-aim-to-pass-gun-control-legislation-by-early-june.html