By MAX DIBLE West Hawaii Today
KAILUA-KONA — One day after 170 Democrats ended their sit-in on the House floor over a lack of movement on gun control, a bipartisan group of representatives that included Tulsi Gabbard sprang into legislative action.
Gabbard, D-Hawaii, joined eight other House members Friday, including four Republicans, in the introduction of legislation aimed at restricting the sale of firearms to individuals placed on the No-Fly List and Selectee List, subsets of the broader Terrorism Screening Database.
The legislation, HR 5576, is the House-companion to the Terrorist Firearms Prevention Act being led in the Senate by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
“In the three and a half years I’ve served in Congress, the Republicans have not once allowed members to vote on any gun control legislation,” Gabbard said of House Republicans in a statement emailed to West Hawaii Today last week. “It is outrageous in this democracy, with a representative form of government, that we are not even allowed to vote on sensible gun control legislation that is supported by the vast majority of the American people.”
Two Senate measures addressing the issue, one from each side of the aisle, proposed as amendments to a larger spending bill were voted down last week. The legislative gridlock, characterized by heavy voting along party lines, preceded the sit-in on the House floor.
While each defeated measure contained some version of restricting the sale of firearms to suspected terrorists, the divisive hinge point between Democrats and Republicans was the right to due process, particularly for those mistakenly placed on terrorist watches like the No-Fly List.
The bipartisan legislation co-sponsored by Gabbard and introduced in the House on Friday is structured in the same fashion as the Democratically-sponsored amendment that was defeated in the Senate — those on the specified terrorist watch lists are immediately and universally denied the right to purchase firearms, after which they are allowed to appeal that decision in a federal court.
But Gabbard’s new legislation contains one important caveat.
Americans or green card holders denied access to legally purchase firearms would not only have a federal appeal process available to them, but the presiding court would be required to rule within a 14-day period, a feature unique to HR 5576 from previously proposed legislation.
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A potential steppingstone
The mentally ill and convicted criminals are already banned from purchasing firearms, and after a 6-2 Supreme Court ruling Monday, domestic abusers may now be denied the right to purchase firearms as well.
HR 5576, which would add suspected terrorists to the above list, does not address the expansion of background checks to a universal extent — a measure that would encompass all gun sales, including those conducted online or at gun shows.
Nor does the bill deal with gun control beyond the scope of suspected terrorists or terrorist sympathizers.
“This bill is a bipartisan compromise and a good place to start,” Gabbard said in a statement, “but it is by no means the last step to fixing the problem of gun violence in our nation.”
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Originally Posted by juleswin
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