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June 8, 2022, 7:26 p.m. ET
The House passed wide-ranging gun control legislation, but it is certain to fail in the Senate.
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A divided House on Wednesday approved a wide-ranging package of gun control legislation in a party-line vote, but the measures were all but certain to go nowhere in the evenly divided Senate, where negotiations continued on more modest proposals that could draw the bipartisan support necessary to move forward.
The 223-to-204 vote came hours after parents and children affected by mass shootings across the country — including an 11-year-old from Uvalde, Texas, who survived a massacre at her school by smearing herself in a classmate's blood and pretending to be dead — delivered wrenching testimony to a House committee, urging Congress to act on gun violence. In searing remarks, Dr. Roy Guerrero, a pediatrician who treated many of the victims in Uvalde, described to lawmakers how he saw children's bodies "pulverized" and "decapitated" by bullets.
But the wrenching testimony quickly gave way to political reality on Capitol Hill, where Republicans split bitterly with Democrats over their gun control proposals, both in the committee and during votes on the legislation later in the day.
The bill passed on Wednesday would prohibit the sale of semiautomatic rifles to people under the age of 21, ban the sale of magazines that hold more than 15 rounds of ammunition, and establish stricter requirements regulating the storage of guns in homes.
Democratic leaders broke the package into its component parts, forcing House Republicans to take a vote on each of the seven provisions to put them on the record against every proposal. The provision to close a loophole and effectively ban bump stocks garnered the most bipartisan support, with 13 Republicans voting to support the measure. The measure to raise the age to 21 to purchase semiautomatic rifles garnered 10 Republican votes in favor, though two Democrats opposed it. The section of legislation banning high-capacity magazines — defined by Democrats as carrying 15 rounds or more — picked up relatively scant support in the House, with only four Republicans supporting the provision, and four Democrats opposing it.
Democrats underscored the urgency of moving quickly to enact stricter gun control laws, pointing to the killing of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, and the racist shooting massacre in Buffalo that had claimed the lives of 10 Black people just 10 days earlier. Both were carried out by 18-year-old gunmen using legally purchased AR-15-style weapons.
"It's unacceptable that in the United States of America, gun violence is the leading cause of death for children," Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the No. 4 Democrat, said at a news conference at the Capitol. "Isn't it reasonable to do everything we can to ensure those guns don't fall into the hands of individuals intent on inflicting carnage on children?"
But the fierce debate on the House floor reflected the vast gulf between the two parties on gun control. House Republicans stayed united in opposing the legislation, casting it as an ineffective remedy to mass shootings and claiming it would restrict the rights of responsible gun owners.
Republican leaders had advised their members to vote the measures down, and reminded them that a coalition of conservative groups, including Heritage Action and the National Rifle Association, would be rating lawmakers on their votes.
"The speaker started by saying this bill is about protecting our kids," said Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee. "That is important — it sure is. But this bill doesn't do it. What this bill does is take away Second Amendment rights, God-given rights, protected by our Constitution, from law-abiding American citizens."
Earlier in the debate, a furious Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, accused Republicans of advancing a "completely false vision of the Second Amendment."
"Take responsibility for your irresponsible position," he thundered at Republicans from across the House floor.
Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas, drew on Dr. Guerrero's testimony, asking his colleagues to "imagine for a second that a shooter with an AR-15 goes into your child's school" and "leaves a hole the size of a basketball in their chest, or leaves their head decapitated off their body."
"Ask yourself what you would ask of the people who represent you," Mr. Castro said. "Would their thoughts and prayers be good enough for you if that happened to your child? Would them being worried about their primary election be OK with you?"
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The best chance of a bipartisan compromise on gun control legislation now rests in the Senate, where Republican and Democratic negotiators have been huddling to reach a consensus on more modest measures.
"We will accept any positive movement," Representative Lucy McBath, Democrat of Georgia, said, "because we know there's not just one particular way or one particular piece of policy that's going to make a dent."
Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.
June 8, 2022, 6:59 p.m. ET
The section banning high-capacity magazines — defined by Democrats as carrying 15 rounds or more — picked up relatively scant support in the House, with only four Republicans supporting the provision, and four Democrats opposing it. Three of the four Republicans who supported it are retiring from Congress at the end of the year.
June 8, 2022, 6:52 p.m. ET
The House approved the fifth section of Democrats' sprawling gun control legislation, a provision formally banning bump stocks. Democrats were united in voting to approve it, and 13 Republicans joined them.
June 8, 2022, 6:12 p.m. ET
The House approved the first section of Democrats' sprawling gun control legislation, a provision to raise the age for purchasers of semi-automatic rifles to 21. Nine Republicans voted in favor of that provision, and two Democrats opposed it.
June 8, 2022, 5:30 p.m. ET
The House is now beginning a series of votes on Democrats' gun control legislation. Democratic leaders are forcing a separate vote on each proposal in the legislation, in order to put Republicans on the record on each measure.
June 8, 2022, 4:28 p.m. ET
House Democrats dared Republicans to oppose a measure condemning white supremacy. They obliged.
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WASHINGTON — House Republicans voted en masse on Wednesday against a resolution condemning a white supremacist conspiracy theory, after Democrats tacked it onto a procedural measure to advance gun control legislation, effectively daring the G.O.P. to oppose it.
The resolution condemned the so-called great replacement theory, the belief that Western elites want to "replace" and marginalize white Americans, which apparently motivated the gunman who slaughtered 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo last month. The measure, which also opened an hourslong debate on legislation to prohibit the sale of semiautomatic weapons to people under the age of 21 and ban the sale of magazines that hold more than 15 rounds of ammunition, passed 218 to 205, with Republicans uniformly opposed.
Republicans are also all but unanimous in their opposition to Democrats' gun control package, and it is exceedingly unusual for members of the minority party to vote in favor of the majority's procedural measures in any case. By including the resolution on replacement theory, Democrats were seeking to put Republicans on the spot on the issue.
The resolution, sponsored by Representative Jamaal Bowman, Democrat of New York, honored the Buffalo shooting victims and denounced the ideology that appears to have motivated their killer, calling it "a white supremacist conspiracy theory that has been used to falsely justify racially motivated, violent acts of terrorism domestically and internationally."
"We cannot continue to carry on as if this hatred is an undeniable part of American culture and cannot change," Mr. Bowman said. "We must combat white supremacy. I refuse to be complicit in this hatred because we have failed to take a stand as a nation."
Democrats have criticized Republicans for failing to condemn replacement theory, noting that some of them have voiced similar themes with nativist language about immigrants, such as calling them invaders and suggesting they are being sent into the United States to dilute the votes of native-born Americans.
"Many individuals in positions of power and media institutions with widely viewed public platforms have contributed to the normalization and legitimization of the underlying principles of the great replacement theory," the resolution asserted.
The theory has become an engine of racist terror, helping inspire a wave of mass shootings in recent years. And in Republican politics, it has slowly migrated from the far-right fringes of discourse to the center.
"For many Americans, what seems to be happening or what they believe right now is happening is, what appears to them is, we're replacing national-born American — native-born Americans to permanently transform the landscape of this very nation," Representative Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania, said earlier this year at a hearing on immigration.
Some Republicans, including Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, have condemned the theory. But many have ducked questions about it and resisted calls to break with the politics of nativism and fear that animate their core supporters.
"Notably absent is the condemnation of our leaders on the right," said Representative Mark Takano, Democrat of California, "who refuse to speak out against this senseless violence and call for what it is: hate speech meant to divide us."
In addition to every Republican, two Democrats, Representatives Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Jared Golden of Maine, also voted no. Mr. Golden previously opposed gun control legislation passed by the House, and a spokesman for Ms. Slotkin said her vote was to protest the way Democratic leadership had lumped the gun control measures together in one package.
June 8, 2022, 2:53 p.m. ET
With Senator John Cornyn in the room, bipartisan gun talks are focused on narrow changes.
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WASHINGTON — As a small crew of Senate Republicans and Democrats hold talks to respond to the epidemic of gun violence in America, Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, is playing a pivotal role.
He is in a familiar spot, as the conservative Republican in a room of centrists who can make or break an agreement — and has both sides guessing, to some degree, which it will be.
His presence in the talks — for which he was handpicked by Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader — means that the far-reaching gun control measures that President Biden and top Democrats are seeking are off the table from the start.
"It has to be incremental," Mr. Cornyn said in an interview, quickly dismissing Mr. Biden's push for steps that could not pass the Senate, such as renewing a federal ban on assault weapons, limiting high-capacity magazines or raising the age to purchase a semiautomatic rifle to 21 from 18.
"I don't think it moved the needle," Mr. Cornyn said of the president's speech last week. "If we are going to come up with a solution, it is going to have to come from the Senate and, frankly, I think the White House understands that. The president is not necessarily a unifying figure in today's politics."
Neither is Mr. Cornyn. With a top rating from the National Rifle Association, he is viewed with suspicion by liberal activists who have long pressed for gun control legislation.
But Democrats who are leading the gun talks insist that he can play a productive role if he chooses to. They note that it was Mr. Cornyn who in 2017 teamed with Democrats to negotiate a package of enhancements in federal background checks after a deadly church shooting in his home state.
"It was an example of Senator Cornyn's ability to reach out across the aisle on a tough topic and find something that made a difference," said Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, who is leading the gun talks for his party.
Mr. Murphy and other Democrats involved in the talks say their experience with Mr. Cornyn gives them hope that some consensus can be found, probably centering around so-called red flag laws that allow guns to be seized from people deemed to be dangerous, as well as mental health measures, school safety funding and adjustments in background checks.
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"He's made it very clear what he is not willing to do, and now we are just exploring what is possible," said Mr. Murphy, who has become a leading congressional voice on gun safety after the 2012 Sandy Hook school shootings in his home state.
The Texan has made plain what he considers off-limits. When a conservative radio host posted a tweet warning that the senator might back more restrictive gun laws, Mr. Cornyn recirculated the comment with a pointed response: "Not gonna happen."
"This is a very divisive and emotional issue, but it is also a constitutional right we are talking about," Mr. Cornyn said in the interview. "I feel very strongly that law-abiding citizens are not the problem here. It is people with criminal and mental health problems."
While suggesting that raising the age to purchase assault weapons would not clear the Senate, Mr. Cornyn said one idea he was exploring with colleagues was whether juvenile records, which are often sealed or expunged, could be added to the information available for a background check. He suggested that such an expansion could have prevented the 18-year-old gunman in Uvalde from obtaining his weapon.
Democrats and Republicans say that Mr. Cornyn's backing is essential to broaden support for legislation, given his credibility with his colleagues. He was the No. 2 Republican in the Senate for six years, until term limits forced him out in 2018. He is seen as a contender for Senate Republican leader whenever Mr. McConnell steps aside.
"I think John is deeply motivated to come up with a common-sense set of reforms that would make a difference," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and a participant in one set of gun safety talks, noting that the Uvalde victims were his constituents.
Mr. Cornyn and Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, won a provision in the Violence Against Women Act in March that requires federal authorities to notify local law enforcement when a person fails a background check in an effort to buy a weapon.
"When he wants to reach common ground, he can," said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, who is also part of the bipartisan gun talks. "But the jury is still out on this one."
June 8, 2022, 2:47 p.m. ET
Clad in an orange suit, a color that honors the victims of gun violence, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California is now opening up debate on the House floor on Democrats' gun control legislation. "It is sickening that our children live in this constant fear," Ms. Pelosi said.
June 8, 2022, 2:47 p.m. ET
'There are sticking points everywhere' in bipartisan Senate talks on gun legislation.
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Nearly a dozen senators met for an hour on Wednesday to discuss a possible compromise on gun legislation, school safety and mental health, as they rushed to secure a deal in the coming days.
But in a sign of how fragile the ongoing talks are, few of the lawmakers who emerged from the private basement office of Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut and a lead negotiator, were willing to discuss specifics. Republicans in particular cautioned against forcing the group to adhere to a deadline, as Democratic leaders insisted they would not wait long before forcing votes on gun control measures.
"Arbitrary deadlines are not our friend," said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas and a top negotiator. "But I think it's reasonable to expect in the next couple of weeks, maybe this work period," he said, referring to the remaining session days before the Senate is scheduled to leave for a Fourth of July recess.
"There are sticking points everywhere," he added as he left the meeting. But Mr. Cornyn told reporters that "everybody is talking in good faith, and I think they're sincere about wanting to achieve a result."
The meeting of 11 senators brought together two bipartisan groups that have been discussing gun measures. Mr. Cornyn, Mr. Murphy and Senators Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, and Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona, have been huddling privately, while Mr. Murphy and Ms. Sinema have been meeting with a larger group of centrists.
Any compromise is destined to be far narrower than the sweeping gun control measures that President Biden has called for and Democrats have long championed, given Republican opposition to substantial gun control measures and the need for 60 votes to break a filibuster in the evenly divided Senate. The talks are designed to find proposals that could draw at least the 10 Republican votes necessary to move past a G.O.P. blockade.
"With each meeting we make more progress — the momentum is good," Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said.
Senators are discussing bipartisan legislation to expand mental health resources, introduced before the shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, as well as funding for school safety, grant money to incentivize states to pass so-called "red flag laws" that allow guns to be taken away from dangerous people and expanded background checks, including allowing juvenile records to be included in background checks for prospective gun buyers under the age of 21.
"This is hard stuff," Mr. Murphy said. "I remain confident that we can get an agreement."
June 8, 2022, 2:20 p.m. ET
The House is now voting to open debate on Democrats' wide-ranging gun legislation. In an attempt to squeeze Republicans, Democratic leaders have included a resolution condemning the racist "great replacement theory" to the procedural vote.
June 8, 2022, 2:04 p.m. ET
The Justice Department aims to finish an inquiry of the Uvalde response in 6 months.
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WASHINGTON — Justice Department officials said on Wednesday that they planned to conduct a comprehensive, transparent and expedited investigation into the law enforcement response to the school massacre last month in Uvalde, Texas.
The department hopes to produce a report in six months that would identify mistakes and help small departments confront mass shooters, officials said privately — underscoring the urgency of clarifying an increasingly confusing picture of the attack and its aftermath.
Over the past week, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and his top aides have been working out a plan to quickly collect and analyze information after the department was criticized for taking more than a year to release a similar report on the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in 2016.
The department has tapped a few law enforcement officials from around the country with experience in mass shootings to oversee the review. They include Gene Deisinger, a former deputy chief at Virginia Tech; Albert Guarnieri, an F.B.I. unit chief; Frank Fernandez, the retired public safety director of Coral Gables, Fla.; and Kristen Ziman, a former police chief of Aurora, Ill.
"The independence, transparency and expertise of the Justice Department can go a long way" in helping to understand what happened and why, Mr. Garland said, introducing the members of the new team during a meeting in his office.
"We will be assessing what happened that day," Mr. Garland said. "We will be making site visits at the school. We will be conducting interviews with an extremely wide variety of stakeholders, witnesses, families, law enforcement, government officials, school officials, and we will be reviewing the resources" that were available to respond to the attack.
Mr. Garland and the associate attorney general, Vanita Gupta, who oversees the division undertaking the effort, emphasized that the inquiry was not a criminal investigation but an attempt to create a minute-by-minute narrative of the events at Robb Elementary School. It was meant to offer an impartial accounting that cut through conflicting news reports and statements by those involved in the response to one of the deadliest school shootings in the country's history.
In the past, the Justice Department's Community Oriented Policing Services Office, which performs noncriminal fact-finding investigations intended to improve local law enforcement practices, has used a subcontractor to conduct interviews, review departmental procedures and analyze 911 dispatch recordings and body camera video.
This time that effort will be in-house, which officials believe could save months. Their goal is to produce a report in six months, although it could take longer if the evidence-gathering process proves more complicated than anticipated, department officials said.
At noon on Wednesday, they began requesting information from dozens of officials working in the Uvalde city and county governments, the state of Texas and federal law enforcement agencies, including the Border Patrol, whose tactical team responded to the shooting at Robb Elementary School.
Mayor Don McLaughlin initiated the investigation, officially known as a critical incident review, on May 29 during a phone call with Ms. Gupta, according to officials familiar with the situation.
Mr. McLaughlin applauded the announcement, saying in a statement that Uvalde's "grieving families and our community deserve answers to all their questions."
In the past, such reviews have been conducted as part of the Justice Department's Collaborative Reform Initiative, which is intended to help police departments review and amend their operations and improve their relationships with local communities.
The program was recently revamped to increase the training and other services that the department offered to local law enforcement agencies seeking to address policing problems, including bias, the use of excessive force and officer-involved shootings.
The investigation into the Pulse nightclub shooting, in which 49 people were killed, found that the Orlando Police Department acted "in a manner consistent with recognized promising practices under extremely volatile and difficult circumstances." But the Justice Department recommended that local and federal officials bolster their preparation for such attacks in the future.
The investigation also praised Orlando officials for managing the flow of information and countering misinformation about the attack. "Control the narrative; do not let unofficial social media control information regarding the incident or the department," the department advised.
That positive assessment is highly unlikely to be repeated in the coming investigation in Uvalde, where state and local officials offered conflicting and contradictory versions of the chaotic response to the attack.
June 8, 2022, 1:53 p.m. ET
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday announced that a team of former law enforcement officials from around the country will undertake a minute-by-minute investigation of the police response to the Uvalde school shooting. The effort is being fast-tracked in the hope of releasing findings within six months — twice the pace of the review that took place following the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in 2016.
June 8, 2022, 1:53 p.m. ET
In Texas, Mayor Don McLaughlin of Uvalde said he welcomed a Justice Department review. "I trust the assessment will be fair and transparent," the mayor said. "Our grieving families and our community deserve answers to all their questions."
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June 8, 2022, 1:53 p.m. ET
The House Oversight Committee has taken a break from its hearing on gun violence, in which it has taken testimony from relatives of victims of the shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, N.Y., as well as experts and Mayor Eric Adams of New York.
June 8, 2022, 1:39 p.m. ET
Representative Henry Johnson, Democrat of Georgia, pushes back against Republicans' argument that more guns in the hands of good people could reduce violence. He warns that if Congress does not restrict gun purchases, "We will continue to see rising rates of gun violence in America."
June 8, 2022, 1:38 p.m. ET
After Miah Cerrillo, a fourth-grade student who survived the Uvalde shooting, gave remarks in a pre-recorded video earlier, Representative Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona, is now accusing Democrats on the committee of further traumatizing the girl for political gain by having her describe her experience. "It's particularly pernicious and outrageous to take an 11-year-old child, who graphically described how she spread a classmate's blood upon her and feigned her own death, to make her relive that," he said.
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June 8, 2022, 1:27 p.m. ET
Representative Michael Cloud, Republican of Texas, said "fatherlessness" and "broken homes" are among the greatest causes of violent children, citing several studies. He added, without specifying, that the government has "promoted policies that continue to break down the home."
June 8, 2022, 1:20 p.m. ET
Uvalde Voices Plead With Congress for Action on Gun Control
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WASHINGTON — Kimberly Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Lexi was killed during the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, pleaded with members of Congress on Wednesday to enact new gun control laws, using her own fresh pain to demand action.
"We seek a ban on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines," Ms. Rubio said, her voice shaking after recounting the last time she saw her daughter and the panicked moments before she learned that Lexi was dead. "We understand for some reason, to some people — to people with money, to people who fund political campaigns — that guns are more important than children."
"So at this moment, we ask for progress."
Ms. Rubio's emotional entreaty, delivered as her husband sat silently weeping beside her, came during a hearing on gun control legislation that is stalled on Capitol Hill amid Republican opposition, and as negotiators in the Senate grasp for a bipartisan deal that could break the stalemate.
Lexi's parents were joined by Dr. Roy Guerrero, the sole pediatrician in the small town of Uvalde and an alumnus of Robb Elementary, who testified in tragically graphic detail about what the AR-15 used in the massacre had done to the bodies of fourth graders. Testifying in person on Capitol Hill, he railed against lawmakers who have failed to act in the face of a rising tide of gun violence in America.
"We're bleeding out," he told the committee, "and you are not there."
Dr. Guerrero recalled seeing two children "whose bodies had been so pulverized by the bullets fired at them over and over again, whose flesh had been so ripped apart, that the only clue as to their identities were the blood-spattered cartoon clothes still clinging to them."
Miah Cerrillo, a fourth-grader who survived the carnage at Robb by covering herself in a classmate's blood and pretending to be dead, shared her ordeal in a prerecorded video, too traumatized to appear in person.
"He shot my friend that was next to me," she said of the gunman who slaughtered 19 students and two teachers at her school, speaking quietly and with little evident emotion. "And I thought he would come back to the room."
Miah's father, who appeared at the hearing in person on his daughter's behalf, left the hearing room in tears.
The emotional testimony unfolded hours before the House was scheduled to vote on a package of gun control measures, including legislation that would prohibit the sale of semiautomatic rifles to people under the age of 21 and ban the sale of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. The bills are all but certain to go nowhere in the evenly divided Senate, where solid Republican opposition means that they cannot draw the 60 votes needed to break through a filibuster.
The hope among Democrats was that the first-person stories from witnesses still processing the trauma of gun violence would underscore to the public and to lawmakers all that is at stake, increasing pressure on Republicans who oppose gun control measures to do something.
"No civilian needs an assault rifle, and the Second Amendment does not protect the right to own a weapon of war," said Representative Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the committee. "It's time that we ban assault rifles from our streets and homes."
Zeneta Everhart, whose son Zaire was injured during the racist gun attack in Buffalo, N.Y., 10 days before the Uvalde tragedy, said lawmakers who continued to do nothing in the face of mass shootings should be voted out of office.
"Let me paint a picture for you: My son Zaire has a hole in the right side of his neck, two on his back and another on his left leg, caused by an exploding bullet from an AR-15," she said. "I want you to picture that exact scenario for one of your children. This should not be your story or mine."
But the second half of the hearing, during which lawmakers questioned expert witnesses, appeared disconnected from the wrenching testimonials delivered by grieving parents and mass shooting survivors.
The Republicans in the room appeared unmoved by the testimonials and demands for action, retreating to their political corners, where they reiterated their previously held positions on guns.
"Evil deeds do not transcend constitutional rights," says Representative Andrew Clyde, Republican of Georgia, arguing that gun-free school zone signs were part of the problem and that the solution was hardening schools.
Representative James Comer of Kentucky, the panel's top Republican, warned in an opening statement that "knee-jerk reactions," such as proposals for stronger gun laws, in the face of gun violence were not the answer. Instead, he said the problem was those who are soft on crime and support defunding the police.
June 8, 2022, 1:15 p.m. ET
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, noted that some gun manufacturers saw profits double in recent years. She called profit the "one thing more important to lobbyists and the gun industry than children and houses of faith," and said: "This is about blood money."
June 8, 2022, 1:08 p.m. ET
Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana, lays into the Buffalo police commissioner when he does not give a "yes" or "no" answer to a question about whether he would confiscate a person's guns based on an anonymous tip. Tossing his pen, Mr. Higgins, a former sheriff's captain, says to Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia: "You're a police commissioner, a thin blue line brother, sworn to uphold the Constitution, and you're saying you'd seize those weapons. I see that as a problem."
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June 8, 2022, 1:06 p.m. ET
Across the Capitol, senators just emerged from a roughly hour-long meeting as they continue to negotiate a compromise over funding for increased mental health, school safety and shoring up background checks, particularly for prospective gun buyers under the age of 21.
June 8, 2022, 1:07 p.m. ET
In a sign of how fragile these talks continue to be, most senators declined to discuss specifics as they left the private meeting. But senators in both parties insisted it was a constructive conversation, and progress was made.
June 8, 2022, 12:56 p.m. ET
Representative Kweisi Mfume, Democrat of Maryland, whose district includes much of Baltimore — where gun killings have spiked over the past five years — said if Congress is not able to pass meaningful gun control laws, "I really believe that we are doomed in our fight against murderers and their guns, and the evil and the pain that they spread."
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June 8, 2022, 12:55 p.m. ET
After a morning of wrenching testimonials from grieving parents and mass shooting survivors, the second half of this hearing, where lawmakers are questioning expert witnesses, appears disconnected from what just unfolded in the same room. Lawmakers have retreated to their political corners, where they are now reiterating previously held, and oft-repeated, positions on guns.
June 8, 2022, 12:55 p.m. ET
Noting that he represents Silicon Valley, Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, suggested that social media companies bear some responsibility for not stepping in when the gunman in Uvalde, Texas, posted pictures of his assault rifles on Instagram and messaged others about violence. "It is crazy to me that you can have people under 18 talking about shootings and mass shootings, and these companies are taking no action," he said.
June 8, 2022, 12:55 p.m. ET
Reporting from Uvalde, Texas
Representative Pat Fallon, Republican of Texas, said more restrictive gun laws were not the answer. "Senseless mass shootings are committed by unstable disturbed loners with mental disease," he said, adding, "More firearms in the hands of law-abiding citizens make us all safer." He called for increased security on school campuses instead.
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June 8, 2022, 12:30 p.m. ET
Representative Jody Hice, Republican of Georgia, asked Mayor Eric Adams of New York City if it was true that, despite being illegal for many people to carry a gun in the city, police are finding and seizing them in "record numbers." Mr. Adams replied that it was true, and then quipped: "And many come from Georgia."
June 8, 2022, 12:52 p.m. ET
A report from Attorney General Letitia James of New York State found that 87 percent of all recovered illegal guns come from out of state, including the so-called "Iron Pipeline" of the Interstate 95 corridor, which includes Georgia.
June 8, 2022, 12:26 p.m. ET
Several members of Congress have referred to previous mass shootings that took place in their own district or state, such as the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech and the shooting last month at a church in Laguna Woods, Calif. — a sign of how many politicians have now had to grapple with a mass shooting close to home.
June 8, 2022, 12:26 p.m. ET
Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, who is in charge of the nation's largest school district, said it would not be helpful to arm teachers as a means of protecting students from shootings.
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June 8, 2022, 12:23 p.m. ET
One night after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Texas, a woman in Charleston, W.Va., reportedly shot and killed a man who had begun firing an AR-15-style rifle into a crowd of people at a party. Representative Andrew Clyde, Republican of Georgia, refered to the altercation and said that the man who had fired into the crowd had illegally obtained the rifle. "Criminals will obtain their weapons however they want," he said. "They will get them illegally. More gun laws are not going to stop that."
June 8, 2022, 12:22 p.m. ET
Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut and a key negotiator on possible gun legisation, said of the hearing in the House: "This is a heavy week as these families are testifying. I know the testimony is really hard to hear, but I think it's important for people to understand the reality of what it's like when you lose a loved one from gun violence."
June 8, 2022, 12:17 p.m. ET
"When the federal government acts in haste, the room for error is exponentially compounded," said Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, as she urged her colleagues to be cautious about acting on the issue of gun violence.
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June 8, 2022, 12:12 p.m. ET
Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, Democrat of Illinois, displayed a tweet from Daniel Defense, the gun manufacturer whose rifle the Uvalde gunman used, in which someone is handing a small child a rifle. Asked what he makes of it, the chief of the Buffalo Police Department said it is "disturbing," particularly because of how many children have accidentally killed themselves or someone else with a parent's gun.
June 8, 2022, 12:08 p.m. ET
Representative Pete Sessions, Republican of Texas, urged lawmakers to speak with more experts before passing any gun control legislation. He also said students might benefit if there was more focus on speaking with one another and "taking time every day to be nice to each other." Doing so, he said, could allow students or teachers to "identify people who have problems."
June 8, 2022, 11:59 a.m. ET
Representative Stephen Lynch, Democrat of Massachusetts, quoted from a New York Times report that found that if the major gun control proposals being considered in Congress had been law since 1999, "four gunmen younger than 21 would have been blocked from legally buying the rifles they used in mass shootings."
June 8, 2022, 11:56 a.m. ET
Mayor Eric Adams of New York City calls for federal help to fight gun violence.
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Mayor Eric Adams of New York City called for bipartisan gun control legislation, a ban on assault weapons and federal aid to help cities and states address the root causes of violence during testimony on Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee.
Mr. Adams, who was elected based on his promise to reduce crime, has struggled in the face of high-profile shootings on the subway and the death of multiple children from stray bullets. Shootings and deaths in New York City remain at heightened levels compared to two years ago, but have decreased compared with last year.
Last week, Mr. Adams appointed a "gun violence czar" before the start of the summer months, when shootings typically increase in the nation's most populous city.
"Ladies and gentlemen, it is high noon in America. Time for every one of us to decide where we stand on the issue of gun violence," Mr. Adams said. "Time to decide if it is more important to protect the profits of gun manufacturers or the lives of our children. Time to decide if we are going to be a nation of laws, or a confederation of chaos."
Mr. Adams has rejected calls to reduce police funding and has stoked concerns about a return to the discriminatory policing policies of New York City's past by increasing police presence on the subway and bringing back a special police squad focused on recovering guns, which used abusive tactics in the past.
In a recent poll of New York City residents, 70 percent said they feel less safe today than they did before the pandemic. Mr. Adams has focused recently on the issue of "ghost guns" and an expected ruling from the Supreme Court that would strike down a law limiting the ability of people to carry guns outside of their homes.
The mayor asked for help to "dam all the rivers that lead to this sea of violence. Common-sense gun reform must become the law of the land," he said.
June 8, 2022, 11:55 a.m. ET
'I left my daughter at that school,' a parent of an Uvalde victim says. 'That decision will haunt me.'
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Alexandria Aniyah Rubio, known as Lexi, had big goals: She wanted to get a degree in math and attend law school. But those dreams were shattered when a gunman stormed her fourth-grade classroom at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, killing Lexi, 18 of her classmates and two teachers.
Her parents, Kimberly and Felix Rubio, testified before Congress on Wednesday about their daughter's lost dreams — and what could be done to prevent similar tragedies in America, where mass shootings have become commonplace in small towns and urban areas alike.
"That opportunity was taken from her; she was taken from us," Ms. Rubio said via a live video stream. "We understand that for some reason, to some people, to people with money, the people who fund political campaigns, that guns are more important than children."
Ms. Rubio pleaded with Congress to change gun laws that allow dangerous weapons to be used by the wrong people. She wants to see the age requirement to buy military-style rifles like the AR-15 raised to 21, as well as stronger background checks on gun buyers, and for gun manufacturers to be liable after similar tragedies.
"At this moment, we ask for progress," she said.
The Rubios described desperately looking for their daughter after news broke that there had been a shooting at her school. Just hours earlier, like many parents, Ms. Rubio had attended an awards ceremony for Lexi. Leaving her behind at the school after the ceremony, Ms. Rubio said, was the biggest regret of her life.
"We promised to get her ice cream that evening. I told her we loved her and we would pick her up after school," a visibly stricken Ms. Rubio testified. She said she could still picture Lexi turning back and smiling, acknowledging her mother's promise of a treat.
"And then we left. I left my daughter at that school. That decision will haunt me for the rest of my life," she said.
June 8, 2022, 11:49 a.m. ET
Asked why there is a need for federal gun control laws, Mayor Eric Adams said New York City has seen an increase in the use of "ghost guns," and that many of the firearms used in crimes have been stolen or flow into the city illegally. "It's more than what we do locally," Mr. Adams said.
June 8, 2022, 11:35 a.m. ET
The mother of a man shot in the Buffalo massacre described her son's wounds.
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Zeneta Everhart brought a searing and emotional firsthand account of the damage wrought on her son by a racist gunman armed with an assault-style weapon in the East Buffalo mass shooting before members of Congress on Wednesday. The lead witness in the hearing, Ms. Everhart traced the shooting back to the very founding of the country.
"America is inherently violent," she said. "My ancestors brought to America through the slave trade were the first currency of America."
Ms. Everhart said she has continuously heard, after past mass shootings, that the attacks do not reflect on who we are as a nation. "Hear me clearly," she said. "This is exactly who we are."
Ms. Everhart's son, Zaire Goodman, who turned 21 after the attack, was an employee at the Tops supermarket where the shooting took place, and was injured as he helped a customer in the parking lot that Saturday afternoon. He played dead on the ground as the gunman passed him by.
Ms. Everhart pointed out that the gunman had received a shotgun from his parents on his 16th birthday. "For Zaire's 16th birthday, I bought him a few video games, some headphones, a pizza and a cake," she said. "What in the world is wrong with this country? Children should not be armed with weapons. Parents who provide their children with guns should be held accountable."
Ms. Everhart brought her son's injuries to the fore in her address to lawmakers.
"Let me paint a picture for you: My son Zaire has a hole in the right side of his neck, two on his back and another on his left leg. Caused by an exploding bullet from an AR-15," she said. "As I clean those wounds I can feel pieces of that bullet in his back."
"I want you to picture that exact scenario for one of your children," she said. "This should not be your story or mine."
She implored lawmakers to act. "You are elected because you have been chosen and are trusted to protect us, but let me say here today, I do not feel protected," she said. "No citizen needs an AR-15."
To lawmakers reluctant to toughen gun laws, she spoke directly: "I invite you to my home to help me clean Zaire's wounds, so you may see up close the damage that has been caused to my son and my community."
June 8, 2022, 11:30 a.m. ET
Joseph Gramaglia, the police commissioner in Buffalo, described an officer, Aaron Salter Jr., who was killed at the Tops supermarket while trying to protect customers. Mr. Gramaglia described him as the proverbial "good guy with a gun." "Aaron was a good guy and was no match for what he went up against, a legal AR-15 with multiple high-capacity magazines. He had no chance," the commissioner said.
June 8, 2022, 11:24 a.m. ET
An Uvalde pediatrician says he will 'never forget what I saw' after the shooting.
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Dr. Roy Guerrero, a pediatrician in Uvalde, Texas, described to members of Congress on Wednesday the horrors he saw two weeks ago in the city's emergency room as he treated wounded and dying students after a gunman massacred an elementary school classroom.
Dr. Guerrero said he had rushed to Uvalde Memorial Hospital on May 24 and found parents already outside the building, yelling their children's names, sobbing and begging for information.
"Those mothers' cries, I will never get out of my head," Dr. Guerrero told the House Committee on Oversight and Reform during a hearing on gun violence. He added: "I know I'll never forget what I saw that day."
He said the first wounded student he saw, upon entering the emergency room, was Miah Cerrillo, an 11-year-old student who had smeared blood on herself to hide from the gunman. Miah also testified at the hearing via a video feed on Wednesday.
Dr. Guerrero said Miah had been bleeding from a shrapnel wound to her shoulder, and that her face was in shock.
"Sweet Miah," Dr. Guerrero said, noting that he had known the girl for her whole life and that she had survived major liver surgeries as a baby. Dr. Guerrero grew up in Uvalde and attended the same school, Robb Elementary, as a child. He said he ran outside to tell her parents that she was alive.
Speaking to the House committee, Dr. Guerrero described returning to the emergency room to horrifying sights: two children who he said had been "pulverized" and "decapitated" by bullets.
"Innocent children all over the country today are dead because laws and policy allows people to buy weapons before they're legally old enough to even buy a pack of beer," Dr. Guerrero said. "They're dead because restrictions have been allowed to lapse."
June 8, 2022, 11:22 a.m. ET
Senate negotiators work to pull together a narrow compromise on gun legislation.
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Senate negotiators are scrambling to coalesce around a narrow compromise that would address mental health and school safety and impose guardrails for prospective gun buyers under the age of 21.
Those efforts to end more than a decade of inaction on Capitol Hill, however, face an uphill battle. Democratic leaders have warned there is little appetite for protracted negotiations, vowing to press ahead with House-passed gun reform legislation that does not have Republican support if talks fall apart in the coming days.
Senators Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, and John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, have been tapped to help lead negotiations, huddling privately with their colleagues and exchanging proposals. Those discussions were expected to continue on Wednesday, as lawmakers aim to reach agreement by the end of the week.
"We know how difficult this is, but that is all the more reason for us to explore every realistic opportunity to getting something done," said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, on Wednesday. He added, "We know we won't get everything we want. Debate for gun safety will continue after this moment. But we have a moral obligation right now to try."
Talks have centered on bipartisan mental health legislation, ways to ensure that juvenile records can be incorporated into a background check for a gun buyer under the age of 21 and shoring up requirements for gun sellers to conduct a background check.
Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina and one of the negotiators, said that they are talking about making the juvenile record part of background checks and fine-tuning some of the mental health provisions.
"What we're trying to do is lay down, first, the agreement, which I think we're very close to; then second, lay down text there; and then we're going to have to socialize it with other members," Mr. Tillis said. He added, "I think there are a lot of people that feel like it's reasonable. And really, I haven't gotten significant pushback."
It is clear that any framework that secures the support of at least 10 Republicans to break a filibuster in the evenly divided Senate will fall short of Democratic ambitions for sprawling gun reform. Republicans have balked at the legislation Democrats plan to advance on the House floor on Wednesday, as well as a proposal to ban assault weapons, as too far-reaching.
"Obviously, an agreement that we reached with the Republicans won't come close to the full list of things I think are necessary to curb this epidemic," Mr. Murphy said, speaking at the weekly Democratic news conference on Tuesday. "But the American people are looking for progress right now. They're looking for action."
June 8, 2022, 11:17 a.m. ET
As the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams has called for federal assistance in addressing gun violence. Mr. Adams called for the passage of bipartisan gun control legislation and money to address the root causes of gun violence. Even though the New York Police Department has seized over 3,000 illegal guns this year, "the guns just keep coming," the mayor said.
June 8, 2022, 11:17 a.m. ET
Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and a member of the committee, was in the hearing room this morning for opening statements, but left before the emotional testimony from witnesses. He is not here as the second panel begins. Some Republicans who sat through the hearing this morning and are still here include Representative Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Representative Scott Franklin of Florida and Representative James Comer, the ranking member on the committee.
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June 8, 2022, 11:11 a.m. ET
Mayor Eric Adams of New York says that America must decide where the country stands on the issue of gun violence and whether it is more important to protect gun manufacturers or the lives of children.
June 8, 2022, 11:09 a.m. ET
The second panel of the hearing is now starting. This segment is expected to feature questions for the witnesses from lawmakers. Testifying now is Mayor Eric Adams of New York City. Also here is Joseph Gramaglia, the police commissioner from Buffalo.
June 8, 2022, 11:05 a.m. ET
Miah Cerrillo, 11, who hid from the Uvalde gunman, says students must 'have security.'
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Miah Cerrillo, a fourth-grade student in Uvalde, Texas, who smeared a dead classmate's blood on herself to avoid being targeted by the gunman who killed 19 students and two teachers in her classroom, described the nightmarish attack in a video played before members of Congress on Wednesday.
Miah, 11, was among several people who testified at the hearing on gun violence. In the pre-recorded video, she said she had been watching a movie with her classmates when one of her teachers got an email and then moved to lock the door. The teacher had told students, "Go hide," she said, and they hid behind backpacks and their teacher's desk.
"He shot my friend that was next to me," Miah said. "And I thought he would come back to the room."
She took blood from her friend and rubbed it over herself so that she would appear dead, and she then called 911 from her teacher's phone, asking for the police.
"I said we needed help," she said.
In the video, she was asked what she wanted to come from the mass shooting.
"To have security," she told members of Congress. She shook her head when she was asked if she felt safe at school. "I don't want it to happen again."
Her father, Miguel Cerrillo, testified briefly in Washington, saying that Miah had changed since the shooting. He pleaded for some kind of change to protect children in school.
"I came because I could've lost my baby girl," Mr. Cerrillo said through tears and sniffles. "And she's not the same little girl that I used to play with and run with and do everything, because she was Daddy's little girl."
"I wish something would change," he said. "Not only for our kids, but every single kid in the world, because schools are not safe anymore."
June 8, 2022, 11:02 a.m. ET
The hearing is now pausing between panels.
June 8, 2022, 10:56 a.m. ET
"Today, we stand for Lexi," Kimberly Rubio said of her murdered 10-year-old daughter. "And as her voice, we demand action. We seek a ban on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. We understand for some reason, to some people … that guns are more important than children," she said, fighting back tears.
June 8, 2022, 10:55 a.m. ET
This is what Miah Cerrillo told her family happened in her classroom in Uvalde, Texas.
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After surviving a gunman's rampage that killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, last month, Miah Cerrillo, 11, shared recorded testimony on Wednesday about the experience with the House Oversight Committee, which is looking into the gun violence epidemic in America.
Miah's relatives have shared her account of what happened at the school that day. A gunman barged through the door and shot one teacher, then the other, then opened fire on the children, said her grandfather, Jose Veloz, 71, relaying Miah's account.
As wounded children fell to the floor, one of them fell on Miah's chest as she lay on the ground, Mr. Veloz said. The gunman went into the next room, and terrified he would return, Miah rubbed the blood of a slain classmate all over her face. Then she played dead herself.
"She was brave and smart to think of that in that moment," Mr. Veloz said in Spanish.
In the next room, Miah had recalled, the shooter began playing "really sad music," her grandmother, Dominga Veloz, 71, said. Miah lay still for about an hour, although it felt much longer, relatives said, until finally a Border Patrol agent barged through the door and shot the gunman.
Days after the shooting, Miah's family was still unable to hug her because of the bullet fragments embedded in her back and in the back of her head, said an aunt, Kimberly Veloz. She needed to see a specialist in San Antonio to remove them, but she did not want to leave the house.
"She still thinks he's going to come and get her," Ms. Veloz said. "We told her that he's dead. But she does not understand."
June 8, 2022, 10:54 a.m. ET
For the parents of Lexi Rubio, anguish has turned to action.
The killing of their daughter, Alexandria Aniyah Rubio, who was known as Lexi, by a gunman in Uvalde, Texas, last month has spurred Kimberly and Felix Rubio to fight for restrictions on firearms. Both are testifying before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, as part of a hearing on the gun violence epidemic in America.
"We live in this really small town in this red state, and everyone keeps telling us, you know, that it's not the time to be political, but it is — it is," Ms. Rubio said in an interview after the tragedy, her voice breaking through tears. "Don't let this happen to anybody else."
Their family was contacted by Gov. Greg Abbott's office, she said, and asked if they would be willing to meet with the governor. Ms. Rubio and her husband declined.
"My first thought was, 'My Lexi doesn't even like him,'" she said. "She was really little, but we talked about this stuff at home."
Mr. Rubio said officials should outlaw the purchase of AR-15 rifles, which the gunman in Uvalde had used.
He said that some people in the Uvalde County Sheriff's Office, where he is a deputy, may not like him for supporting such measures, but that gun control laws could help prevent another massacre.
Earlier on the day of the shooting, May 24, Lexi, 10, received a good citizenship award and an honor roll award for getting all A's, Ms. Rubio said. Hours later, the scene outside the school transformed as officers, ambulances and crying parents arrived. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed.
Mr. Rubio, 35, said he responded to the initial reports of a shooting and saw the authorities shoot the gunman. He did not share more details.
"It sucks whenever you're in the same field with your baby and you can't go in there —" he said, his voice breaking. "And go get her."
Ms. Rubio had imagined what it would sound like at graduation, as her girl, who had dreamed of being a lawyer, walked down the aisle, wearing a cap and gown.
"Our baby wanted to be a lawyer; she wanted to make a difference," Ms. Rubio said.
Lexi was shy at times, but when there was a point she wanted to get across, "she made it," Ms. Rubio said.
Now, the Rubios hope they can do the same.
June 8, 2022, 10:54 a.m. ET
Reporting from Uvalde, Texas
Kimberly Rubio described her daughter, Lexi, as "intelligent, compassionate and athletic." She did not have to die this way, her mother said. "At this moment, we ask for progress."
June 8, 2022, 10:52 a.m. ET
Reporting from Uvalde, Texas
Kimberly Rubio, whose daughter was among the 19 students killed in Robb Elementary, walked members of Congress through the idyllic day when her daughter received an award for good grades and was looking forward to stopping for ice cream for her efforts. After news of the shooting broke, Kimberly recalled, she looked everywhere for her daughter. "I ran barefoot" to the school, she said.
June 8, 2022, 10:48 a.m. ET
Representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, led Mr. Cerrillo, who broke down in tears, out of the hearing room by the hand.
June 8, 2022, 10:28 a.m. ET
Zeneta Everhart recalled her son's brush with death.
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Zeneta Everhart came terrifyingly close to losing her son on May 14, when a gunman with a racist agenda attacked Tops Friendly Market in East Buffalo.
Her son, Zaire Goodman, 20, had worked at the market for two years.
"He said he was helping a woman with her cart and he saw the man come out of a blue car with tactical gear," Ms. Everhart said in an interview the day after the attack. "And he shot my son."
That shooting occurred in the first seconds of the attack, which killed 10 shoppers and store employees. The woman Mr. Goodman had been helping was killed, as were others in the parking lot. Then the gunman entered the store.
Mr. Goodman had only a superficial wound to the neck, but he played dead. "He lay there because he didn't want to get shot again," Ms. Everhart said.
A co-worker found him and helped him run across the street. Eventually Mr. Goodman was taken to a hospital.
There, his family realized how lucky he had been with the bullet's path. "It missed everything," Ms. Everhart said. He was sent home that same night.
"We're blessed," Ms. Everhart said more than once. "We're counting our blessings today."
Asked whether her son would return to work at Tops, she replied without hesitation: "He will not."
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/08/us/gun-violence-hearing-uvalde-buffalo
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