Democratic leaders are seeking to advance a number of gun control bills in the House, hoping to force vulnerable Republicans to take a side on the matter ahead of a crucial election cycle in 2024.
House Democrats filed three separate discharge petitions on Tuesday to advance legislation seeking tighter gun restrictions and a ban on assault-style weapons, using a rare mechanism that could trigger a floor vote even without the support of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Party leaders are seeking to use that vote to put Republicans in an uncomfortable position, hoping to paint their GOP counterparts as unserious on the matter of guns.
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"It should shock the conscience that gun violence is the leading cause of death with children in this country," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said on Tuesday. "America, the greatest country in the history of the world, should not be in a situation where young people are afraid to go to school. Where people have to live in fear. In terms of going to the synagogue or a mosque or the church or to a mall or to a concert — we are better than that as a country."
Under House rules, lawmakers can use a discharge petition to move it to the floor for consideration without committee approval if the legislation has been introduced and referred to a standing committee for at least 30 days. To do so, lawmakers must get a majority of the House — in this case, 218 members — to sign a petition to consider the bill on the floor.
That means if all Democrats sign on to the discharge petitions, the party would only need support from five Republicans to bring the legislation to the floor.
One discharge petition being brought by Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) aims to advance a bill originally introduced by former Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) earlier this year that would enact a national assault-style weapons ban. Cicilline retired from Congress at the end of May.
The other two petitions will be introduced by Reps. James Clyburn (D-SC) and Mike Thompson (D-CA) on two bills seeking to strengthen background checks for those buying firearms.
"I made a promise to survivors like myself all around America," said McBath, whose son was killed as a result of gun violence over a decade ago. "I promised I would take all that love, all of that conviction, all of the care that I given my son as a mother, that sense of protection for my son, and that I would spend the rest of my life devoted to making sure that mothers and fathers across this country never ever, ever have to suffer the kind of loss that I have and so many survivors that stand behind us."
All three pieces of legislation passed the House in the last Congress but failed to advance through the evenly split Senate.
The push to advance gun reform legislation comes as House Republicans are poised to pass a bill on Tuesday that would undo a rule by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives that would reclassify pistols as short-barreled rifles if they have a stabilizing brace attachment. Doing so requires a federal license to own the weapon, prompting House Republicans to claim the Biden rule would subject firearm owners to fines of $10,000 and 10 years in jail if they do not surrender their firearms.
That bill is being brought to the floor on Tuesday as part of an agreement between McCarthy and hard-line conservatives to stop blocking movement in the House.
"We're trying to make the community safer, and they've got a bill on the floor that would allow for an aftermarket device to be added to an already menacing short-barreled assault pistol to make it function like a rifle," Thompson said. "It's already killing people, and this brace thing that they're trying to make legal will make it more lethal."
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It’s not yet clear whether Democrats can garner enough support within their own party to sign on to the discharge petitions as several lawmakers in districts won by former President Donald Trump in 2020 may be hesitant to back an assault-style weapons ban. Meanwhile, some Republicans may feel compelled to sign on to the increased background checks, especially after a number of GOP lawmakers have previously supported similar legislation.
Even if the discharge petitions do manage to pass the House, the bills are unlikely to gain much traction in the closely divided Senate.