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The House will vote this week on two bills to expand gun purchase background checks in what would be the largest expansion of the system in a quarter of a century. One, H.R. 8, would require background checks in private sales, including gun shows and online transactions. The second, H.R. 1112, would extend the background check waiting period from three days to 20. Gun sellers can complete a sale after just three days, even without receiving the results of a background check, under current law.
Lengthening the background check period could help close what's become known as the "Charleston loophole." White supremacist killer Dylann Roof had felony drug charges pending against him, but was still able to purchase the gun he used to murder 9 people at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.
First-year Rep. Lucy McBath gave the House’s radio address on Saturday and talked about this legislation. The Georgia Democrat's 17-year-old son was shot and killed in 2012, and she based much of her winning campaign on fighting gun violence. "House Democrats are taking action to make sure our communities and our nation are safer," she said Saturday. "We need commonsense legislation to prevent gun violence and ensure that mothers and fathers have one less reason to worry."
Former Rep. Gabby Giffords, the Arizona Democrat whose career was ended when she was shot on January 8, 2011, was on hand when the bill was introduced last month and will be in D.C. this week to lobby her former colleagues. Rep. Steve Scalise, the South Carolina Republican who also survived an assassination attempt, in June of 2017, is opposed to both of these bills, along with the NRA and the Russian asset in the White House. The bills are unlikely to reach Trump's desk, however. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is almost certainly not going to bring them to the floor there.
Democrats are betting that that refusal to act on the part of Republicans will help drive voters to the polls next year. "This long-overdue bill respects the will of the American people, 97 percent of whom support universal background checks, and respects our obligations to the survivors and families of gun violence," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. There have been 2,125 gun deaths in just the first two months of this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, and February isn't even over yet. That includes 47 mass shootings and 3,681 people injured. Eighty-two children under age 11 and 344 teens have been injured or killed since Jan. 1.
