Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee last year reintroduced the Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act that she had first proposed in 2019. Sheikh was a Pakistani exchange student murdered in a 2018 mass shooting at Santa Fe High School 35 miles south of Houston. Nine others were also murdered. The bill would set a minimum age for gun ownership of 21, create a national firearms registry, and mandate licensing as well as psychological evaluations for gun buyers.
That’s considerably stronger than what other House Democrats are preparing to propose under the "Protect Our Kids Act." It’s a combination of eight other bills that include provisions raising the age from 18 to 21 to buy a semiautomatic rifle, make it a federal offense to sell, make, or possess high-capacity magazines, and tighten penalties for gun traffickers. The bill could be taken up in committee as early as Thursday, and Jackson Lee is one of its most avid supporters.
That combo has a much better chance of passage in the House than Jackson Lee’s bill, to be sure. But it nonetheless faces big odds against it because of Republican intransigence in the Senate. The congresswoman remains optimistic not only about the new package passing the House, but also about the chance an assault weapons ban will be introduced and passed in the House.
Here are the eight existing pieces of legislation being wrapped in some form into the “Protect Our Kids Act”:
- The Raise the Age Act (bar federal licensees from selling certain centerfire semi-automatic rifles to anyone under 21, with exceptions for active duty military personnel and law enforcement)
- The Prevent Gun Trafficking Act (establishes new federal penalties for trafficking or for selling or giving a firearm to someone the seller/giver knows or has reason to believe will traffic it)
- The Untraceable Firearms Act (strengthening the ATF’s regulatory authority over “ghost guns,” however they are made)
- Ethan’s Law (requiring secure storage if a minor is otherwise likely to gain access without permission)
- The Safe Guns, Safe Kids Act (penalizes anyone who fails to store firearms where a minor cannot get it or if a minor gains access and uses it in a crime or causes the death of another person)
- The Kimberly Vaughan Firearm Safety Storage Act (requiring gun dealers to promote safe storage with a written notice with every firearm they sell and creating a tax credit for the purchase of safe gun storage devices)
- Closing the Bump Stock Loophole Act (regulating existing bump stocks in the same manner as machineguns and registered under the National Firearms Act; the devices have been illegal to sell since 2019, but those already in private hands were grandfathered in)
- The Keep Americans Safe Act (limiting the import, manufacture, sale, or other transfer of magazines, belts, drums, and other ammunition feeders to a maximum of 10 rounds)
What’s missing from that list, all of which House Democrats say they can pass, is an assault weapons ban, something that President Joe Biden spoke in support of Monday:
“It makes no sense to be able to purchase something that can fire up to 300 rounds,” he told reporters outside the White House after traveling from Delaware. “The idea of these high-caliber weapons — there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of, about self-protection, hunting and I guess — and, remember, the Constitution, the Second Amendment was never absolute. You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed. You couldn't go out and purchase a lot of weaponry."
A poll conducted after the Uvalde slaughter found that 67% of U.S. voters support resurrecting a ban on assault weapons, compared with just 25% opposed.
Elie Mystal is on Daily Kos' The Brief podcast today
"Legislation like this cannot wait," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) tweeted Monday. "There is no reason why the average person should be able to walk into a store and buy an AR-15."
As we know all too well, there’s Just one obstacle: the U.S. Senate. While such a ban might make its way through the House, there’s zero chance it can get enough senators to go along to overcome the 60 votes needed to beat a Republican filibuster.
For years, Sen. Chris Murphy has worked to pass gun law reform, and last week literally begged his colleagues to pass reform legislation. He is now working with a bipartisan committee to craft legislation that could get enough Republican votes to make it to President Biden’s desk. So any proposal that comes out of that ad hoc group may include red flag provisions, but no assault weapons ban.
Last March when Jackson Lee re-introduced her Sabika Sheikh bill, the House had just passed the Bipartisan Background Checks Act and the Enhanced Background Checks Act. The bills require universal background checks on all commercial gun sales and extend the time from three days to 10 days before a licensed gun seller must release a firearm in case of an uncompleted background check. The first bill got eight Republican yes votes, the second just two. Fifteen months after the House passed that pair of bills, the Senate has yet to consider them.
That same month, California Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced the “Assault Weapons Ban of 2021,” one of several she has introduced since the expiration of the first ban 18 years ago. This would also ban ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. Feinstein got 34 Democratic senators to sign as co-sponsors. Under the bill, current owners of the millions of such assault weapons in private hands could keep them, but any transfer to another person would require the same FBI background check now required for machine-guns and other automatic weapons.
Feinstein succeeded once. In 1994, a bipartisan Congress passed the assault weapons ban she introduced. But that law was subject to a sunset provision and expired in 2004.
But in 2013, in the wake of the Sandy Hook slaughter of elementary school children and educators with an AR-15, Feinstein introduced the ban again in S.150. The bill failed on a vote of 40-60.
Here are the 15 Democratic Senators who joined 44 Republicans and one independent voting nay on that bill:
Max Baucus
Mark Begich
Michael Bennet
Joe Donnelly
Martin Heinrich
Heidi Heitkamp
Tim Johnson
Mary Landrieu
Joe Manchin
Mark Pryor
Jon Tester
Mark Warner
Kay Hagan
Tom Udall
Mark Udall
Ten of those Democrats are no longer in the Senate, several having been replaced by Republicans. As for the five still serving:
Sen. Mark Warner has changed his mind and even written a Washington Post op-ed on the subject four years ago.
Sen. Martin Heinrich has changed his mind and said four years ago that he would now support a ban, although he has concerns about details.
Sen. Michael Bennet has changed his mind and said three years ago that he would support a ban.
Sen. Jon Tester has repeatedly opposed an assault weapons ban but has a mixed record on other gun law reforms.
Sen. Joe Manchin has said repeatedly that he can’t support a ban. Just two weeks ago, he said he couldn’t even vote for the already-passed House bill expanding background checks, saying that the much-diluted bill he and Pennsylvania’s Republican Sen. Pat Toomey crafted in 2013 is the way to go. That bill only got 54 of the 60 votes it needed.
In the unlikely event the House were to pass an assault weapons ban, it would no doubt do a lot better among senators than in 2013. But with two Democratic senators still adamantly opposed, it would be as dead on arrival in a Senate where even the chances of passing a watered-down expansion of background checks are slim to nil.
If slaughter after slaughter of elementary school kids aren’t enough to budge all these supposed representatives of the people to take serious action that big majorities of Americans support, calling our system “broken” profoundly understates the reality.