House Passes Gun-Control Measure Expanding Background Checks on Sales

The Chamber was preparing separately to vote to extend the window for background checks from three days to 10 days, giving police authorities more time to examine individuals before they can buy weapons.

Both arms measures passed the House in 2019, after Democrats regained control of the House in the midterm elections, but languished in the Senate when then-majority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) Refused to schedule polls.

The prospects for legislation in the Senate, now controlled by Democrats, are uncertain, but the effort may give further impetus to the party’s effort to change the rules in the divided chamber to facilitate approval of bills.

“We know what we need to do to help protect millions of Americans,” said Representative Mark DeSaulnier (D., California). “I am proud to support these projects because there is clear evidence that they will make our communities safer and save lives”

Republican opponents said the weapons projects would impose bureaucratic burdens on law-abiding gun owners, without addressing the ways in which weapons fall into the hands of people who misuse weapons.

Opponents also fear that background checks are aimed at establishing a national registry that the federal government can later use to withdraw weapons from gun owners, although legislation prohibits the creation of a national registry.

“Does this bill create a de facto arms register, involving the federal government in all arms transfers, including private and gift transfers, or how are we going to enforce these requirements?” said Deputy Bob Good (R., Va.) “For my Democratic friends who suggest that conservatives and gun owners are paranoid about a national record, you can bet they are.”

House Democrats, encouraged by their new control of Congress and the White House, suffered a legislative break after President Biden took office a month and a half ago, with votes on controversial policing projects, voting rights and now weapons. Narrow majorities in both the House and the Senate are motivating House Democrats to pass as much as they can as quickly as possible, although many of the bills face difficulties in the Senate.

It also boosted the impetus for an internal rule covering House procedures that are delayed until April 1, a requirement that the legislation be subject to a committee hearing and vote. With weeks to go, Democrats rushed to the floor for measures passed last year, including voting rights and policing measures, without wasting time to submit the measure to normal committee procedures and allow new members to weigh.

Passing bills in rapid succession can also put pressure on the Senate, where some Democrats want to change House procedures to clarify what they see as a bottleneck that disrupted their legislation. Many Democrats have discussed changing or removing the 60-vote limit, known as obstruction, needed to move most legislation forward. The support of all 50 senators in the Democratic camp would be needed to change the rule, and several said they would not back down.

The two draft gun laws being voted on deal with different aspects of gun ownership. A move would mark the most significant arms control measure in decades, requiring buyers to be screened for almost all private sales online and at gun shows, and would make it illegal to transfer and hand over weapons to friends or family or in other transactions. without going through background checks and meeting record-keeping requirements. Currently, federal laws require checks only for sales by resellers licensed by the federal government, although some states have added their own requirements.

The other would increase the time that firearm transactions could be postponed from three to ten business days pending a full background check through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The system operated by the FBI conducts inquiries to determine whether a buyer has been disqualified from owning a weapon.

The system was defective in the shooting of nine people in 2015 during a Bible study meeting at a historically black church, where sniper Dylann Roof managed to buy a gun after his background check lasted for three days, allowing him to take it. home. A previous drug arrest should have prevented him from buying the gun.

Congress has not made major changes to federal gun laws in recent years, even with some high-profile shootings aimed at lawmakers, including then Democratic Arizona Congressman Gabby Giffords in 2011 and then Speaker of the House Steve Scalise (R. , La.) In 2017.

After the murder of 20 children and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, a bill to expand background checks for all online sales and at gun fairs narrowly failed in the Senate in 2013.

Bipartisan groups of lawmakers have also been pushing to prevent suspected terrorists from buying firearms by banning individuals on the government’s “banned” list, but a series of proposals did not work in 2016 after the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Congress in March 2018 included a clause in an spending bill signed by then President Donald Trump to strengthen compliance with the national background check system for the purchase of firearms. The measure added incentives for state and federal agencies, including the military, to submit records of criminal convictions to the system. Federal law requires agencies to submit relevant records, but at the state level, compliance is voluntary, unless required by state law or federal funding requirements.

—Kristina Peterson contributed to this article.

Write to Siobhan Hughes at [email protected]