House passes tough new gun measures hours after wrenching testimony
Source: Washington Post
The House on Wednesday endorsed some of the most aggressive gun-control measures taken up on Capitol Hill in years — including raising the minimum age for the purchase of most semiautomatic rifles to 21 and banning high-capacity ammunition magazines — as Washington seeks to mount a tough response to recent high-profile mass shootings.The 223-to-204 vote took place just hours after a House committee heard searing testimony from a young survivor of the May 24 shooting in Uvalde, Tex., as well as the parents of a victim and a pediatrician who responded to the tragedy that left 19 fourth-graders and two teachers dead.
Five Republicans joined most Democrats in backing the legislation. Two Democrats voted “no.” “Somewhere out there, there is a mom listening to our testimony thinking, ‘I can’t even imagine their pain,’ not knowing that our reality will one day be hers, unless we act now,” said Kimberly Rubio, the mother of 10-year-old Lexi Rubio, who was killed in the attack. The House vote, however, will amount to little more than a political messaging exercise because of firm Republican opposition to substantial new gun restrictions.
That has left hopes for a bipartisan deal that could be signed into law in the hands of a small group of senators who are exploring much more modest changes to federal gun laws. Those talks continued Wednesday in hopes of sealing a deal in the coming days.Still, Democrats said this week’s House votes were necessary to show Americans that more can be done to prevent not only mass-casualty incidents such as the killings last month in Buffalo and Uvalde, but the hundreds of less deadly mass shootings and everyday incidents of gun violence that have long scourged America.
“Even if our Senate colleagues do not take up these exact bills, I will tell you what this process we are going through will absolutely do and why our efforts here are worthwhile: This process will unequivocally show where each and every one of us stand in the wake of this unspeakable tragedy,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), adding that the votes would send a clear message to the Senate negotiators. Republicans attacked the bills as an unserious, partisan effort that would infringe on Americans’ constitutional rights. At a news conference Wednesday, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) called them an effort “to destroy the Second Amendment.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/08/house-gun-legislation/
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Senate will bury it and nothing will be done. They don't care! 
repugs keep saying it's a mental health problem, red flags would address that.
It doesn't matter that they abandoned their Party voting, because they all knew it would pass anyway. Oftentimes the black sheep voters know they have to answer to constituents back home, or they've got a big donor that's asking for something in particular.
The House of Representatives can pass these bills and then watch them get stuck in the Senate, or else it looks like swiss cheese from all the things that the Senate does to it before they'll approve it. The problem is always the Senate.
