House Votes to Increase Semi-Automatic Rifle Purchase Age to 21
On Wednesday, as portion of a slate of expenditures aimed at curbing mass shootings and gun violence, the Dwelling voted to boost the age needed to buy a semi-computerized rifle from 18 to 21.
The vote was 228 to 199, with ten Republicans signing up for Democrats in supporting the measure. These GOP users were being Reps Fitzpatrick, Gonzalez, Jacobs, Katko, Kinzinger, Malliotakis, Salazar, Smith, Turner, and Upton.
Just after an 18-calendar year-previous gunman utilised an AR-15-design weapon to massacre 19 kids and two teachers in a fourth-quality elementary-school classroom in Uvalde, Texas, in May possibly, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been going with urgency to go payments to stop these tragedies. In the previous number of weeks, a bipartisan coalition of senators has been negotiating gun legislation, pitching proposals these as expanded history checks and federal criteria for pink-flag legislation, which permit the confiscation of firearms from individuals considered unsafe.
The vote comes just after testimony from the latest Uvalde shooting victims and relatives customers and speeches from gun-command advocates, which includes celebrities such as Matthew McConaughey. Miah Cerrillo, an eleven-calendar year-previous who protected herself with her friend’s blood to play lifeless and stay away from staying shot as the carnage unfolded in Uvalde, spoke to the Home Oversight and Reform Committee Wednesday to share her intestine-wrenching working experience.
Though the age-requirement monthly bill sophisticated in the Household, the place Democrats have a larger sized governing margin, it is unlikely to endure in the evenly divided Senate, where deliberations in excess of improving psychological-well being packages, “hardening” universities with increased security, and increasing qualifications checks are at present using priority.
The age provision is aspect of the Defending Our Young ones Act, a deal of proposals that also includes a prohibition on massive-capacity ammunition-feeding products, harder punishments for gun trafficking and straw purchases, and a prerequisite for registration of bump stock–type equipment, between other laws. Democratic leaders split the package into particular person items as a approach to thrust Republicans who otherwise oppose wide gun command.
Property Minority Whip Steve Scalise instructed Wednesday that the laws is unconstitutional and that Democrats ought to stop concentrating on restricting weapons and start out doing the job to detect what is driving the spike in mass shootings.
“The thought that you can take away somebody’s legal rights with out because of method as the monthly bill that Speaker Pelosi is bringing to the flooring less than the identify Crimson Flag is unconstitutional, violates many sections of our Constitution that give People the correct to owing course of action,” Scalise claimed.
“Airplanes were used that day as the weapon to destroy hundreds of men and women and to inflict terror on our state. There was not a dialogue about banning airplanes,” he instructed reporters Wednesday.
