WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, for the first time in a generation, the U.S. House passed new gun control legislation, by a vote of 240-190. The legislation — and another bill scheduled for a vote — reflects a confluence of events, including a newly empowered House Democratic majority, the apparently diminishing clout of the National Rifle Association, and the activism of a generation of young Americans following years of deadly school shootings. The House bill would require background checks on all commercial gun sales, including those at gun shows and over the internet. The bill also had five Republican co-sponsors, led by New York Rep. Peter King, who had tried — and failed — for several years to advance the bill while his party controlled the chamber. Democrats taking control of the House has “really given it momentum. Hate to admit that, but that’s the reality,” King said in an interview with NBC News. But other Republicans contend the legislation would have no impact in preventing some mass shootings and that it will ultimately threaten the rights of legal gun owners. If the two bills became law, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, said at a news conference Tuesday, there would be "a situation where they couldn’t be enforced, ultimately, without a federal gun registry." Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., the Republican minority whip who was shot and gravely injured at a congressional baseball practice in 2017 added: “It’s one more step towards federalized gun registration and ultimately gun confiscation.” King said that argument “just isn’t true.” “We’re talking about the person who is a criminal, the person who has a history of mental illness,” he said, noting his party is out of step even with most gun owners. Since the bill faces an uphill fight in the Republican-run Senate, the House leadership has arranged for a separate vote Thursday on a more modest measure that may be able to attract greater bipartisan support. That bill would close the so-called “Charleston loophole,” which allows the sale of a firearm to proceed if a background check is not completed within three days. It’s a loophole that allowed Dylann Roof to obtain his weapon with which he murdered nine people at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. Had the FBI background check been completed, he would have been blocked because it would have been revealed that he had previously admitted to drug possession. The effort to close that loophole is the first test of the new Democratic leadership’s ability to advance a few modest legislative goals capable of garnering bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress, aides say. In the Senate, Democrats are hoping to pressure Republicans, including Tim Scott of South Carolina and Cory Gardner of Colorado — another state rocked by mass shootings — to align themselves with the measure and lean on McConnell to bring it for a vote. President Donald Trump has vowed to veto the current legislation, and many advocates remain skeptical that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will bring it up for a vote. The two bills represent the first gun safety efforts expected to pass the House since the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1994 mandated federal background checks on firearm purchases in the United States. Much has changed in the world of gun sales since then — the law doesn’t cover sales over the internet and at gun shows, meaning there are gaping holes in the nation’s legal gun purchasing system. While the current divided Congress makes it unlikely that any significant gun safety efforts will pass anytime soon, advocates say it’s an effort worth making. “At least one body of Congress is willing to do what many Americans are asking for … and then build towards bold policies that we really need to reduce gun deaths,” said Igor Volsky, executive director of Guns Down America, a grassroots advocacy group that says it is “taking on” the NRA. The 2018 midterm election marked a turning point of sorts, with pro-gun control groups increasing their political muscle. For the first time, groups like Everytown for Gun Safety and Giffords PAC, founded by former Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords -- who was shot and seriously wounded by a would-be assassin in 2011 -- spent at least $13 million at the state and federal levels in the midterms. That figure is $2 million more than gun rights groups including the N.R.A. spent, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Television ads run by Everytown for Gun Safety highlighting the need for tougher gun laws increased 22 fold from four years ago, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. In tossup House races, 93 percent of gun-related ads favored stricter gun measures, the Journal analysis found. Many of the candidates who ran openly on a platform to curb gun violence won, even in traditionally Republican areas like Texas. For instance, of the 307 federal and local candidates Giffords endorsed, 256 were victorious. They also include new members such as Lucy McBath of Georgia, who lost her son, Jordan Davis, in 2012. Activists say that wider public support for broadening background checks, with 90 percent approval in Gallup and other major polls, along with the coming of age of a generation of children born into a culture of school shootings that began with the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, has shifted the activism intensity to the side of gun control. Sam Zeif, 19, lost a friend in the mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, last year. Zeif said that following the shooting, the school’s students and parents created new gun safety groups, including March for our Lives and Change the Ref. They have held town halls, arranged demonstrations, called congressional offices and arranged petitions while coordinating with parents from Columbine and Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children as young as six lost their lives in a mass shooting in 2012. “It wouldn’t be the same without everyone’s contribution,” Zeif said. “Somebody had to do it. It just happened to be us,” he said. Sponsors of the legislation being voted on Wednesday also credited activism by the Parkland students as a critical factor in building momentum. “It’s the accumulation of tragedies over the years, personified by Parkland,” King said. “Every day, there’s a group of young people up here campaigning for expansion of background checks,” Rep. Mike Thompson, a California Democrat who is co-sponsoring the broad background check bill, added.<doc-sep>It is “unlikely” that either measure will be taken up in the Republican-controlled Senate, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Republican, said on Tuesday. House Republicans have flatly condemned both pieces of legislation, arguing the measures would be both ineffective and infringe on law-abiding citizens’ rights. The House bill that was approved on Wednesday “is taking the fears and concerns of a nation over gun violence and perpetrating a fraud on them,” said Representative Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee. “The reality is nothing in this bill would have stopped Parkland, or stopped any of the other violence we have seen.” Gunmen at the center of a number of high-profile mass shootings passed background checks and legally purchased the firearms they used. But gun control activists have praised both background check measures as a critical first step in a broader drive to reduce gun violence. “America’s current background check system is like having two types of security lines at the airport: one for people who are willing to be screened, and one you can waltz right through carrying whatever you want,” said John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “We applaud the House for moving so quickly.” Once divided on the issue, House Democrats returned to the majority, promising meaningful action on gun control, with aid from advocacy groups backing candidates who made the issue central to their campaigns. Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, spent around $100 million in the midterms last year to elect gun control supporters, according to Everytown. The group will continue its push this week with $400,000 in digital ads urging lawmakers to support the legislation as it tries to break through the Senate. One of the new freshman Democrats supported by Mr. Bloomberg, Representative Lucy McBath of Georgia, had a 17-year-old son, Jordan, killed by gun violence.<doc-sep>A gun store sales associate looks on as a customer tries out a semi-automatic pistol in Las Vegas, Nevada. The House passed a bipartisan bill to boost gun background checks on Wednesday, starting the most significant push Congress has taken to increase firearms regulations in years. The legislation, the most significant gun control plan Congress has passed in more than two decades, cleared the Democratic-held House in a 240-190 vote. Eight Republicans supported the measure, while two Democrats opposed it. Still, the bill likely will not get through the GOP-controlled Senate and past President Donald Trump's veto. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged to take steps to address gun safety after Democrats gained control of the chamber in January for the first time in eight years. The bill approved Wednesday would require background checks for all firearms sales, including transactions on the internet and at gun shows. Another measure the House plans to pass this week would extend the background check review period to 10 days from three days. In a tweeted statement after the vote, Pelosi's political team said Democrats "put an end to the Republican obstruction and inaction on gun violence." Despite some GOP support for the proposals, many Republicans have decried the Democratic push to strengthen gun control laws. Trump has pledged to veto both plans. The White House argues the bills would put an unnecessary burden on gun owners. Public opinion has moved in favor of tighter gun laws in recent years after a string of high-profile mass shootings, such as the killing of 17 students and staff members at a Florida high school just over a year ago. When they took the majority, Democrats wanted to push for gun control measures with broad public support. In March 2018, 92 percent of Americans said they favor background checks for all gun sales, according to a Gallup survey. Following the shooting last year in Parkland, Florida, Trump told survivors of the massacre and family members of victims that he would be "very strong on background checks." Democrats accused him of hypocrisy after he promised to block the legislation that passed Wednesday. Democrats gained confidence in the issue last year after several candidates won swing House districts while making gun control a priority. Most notably, Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., won a race on the outskirts of Atlanta with gun control as her signature issue. Her 17-year-old son was shot and killed in 2012. — The Associated Press contributed to this report Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.<doc-sep>
McBath willing to work across the aisle for gun bill (CNN) — The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed significant gun control legislation for the first time in more than two decades, a move that Democrats hope will intensify a pressure campaign for a vote in the Senate. The universal background check bill, H.R. 8, requires background checks on all firearm sales in the country. Currently, only licensed gun dealers must perform background checks for anyone seeking to purchase a firearm. Most unlicensed sellers do not; H.R. 8 would make that illegal. There are exemptions to the law like “gifts to family members and transfers for hunting, target shooting, and self-defense,” according to the House Judiciary Committee website. The measure passed 240-190. Eight Republicans voted for the bill, and two Democrats, Jared Golden of Maine and Collin Peterson of Minnesota, voted against it. The bill will move to the Senate, where it is unlikely to pass in the Republican-majority chamber as legislation often needs 60 or more votes to advance. The bill, sponsored by a bipartisan duo of Reps. Mike Thompson, a California Democrat, and Peter King, a New York Republican, remains an outlier right now in the House since it has bipartisan support. Most of the legislation related to gun control has been sponsored by Democrats. Four other Republicans co-sponsored the bill: Brian Mast of Florida, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Chris Smith of New Jersey and Fred Upton of Michigan. King told CNN on Tuesday that he may get a few more Republican colleagues to vote for the measure, but “no more than a handful.” At a 25-year anniversary party for the gun control group the Brady Campaign on Tuesday evening, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed confidence that the universal background checks bill would pass the House of Representatives. At the event, Pelosi also recalled her efforts with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in the 1990s on gun control as “hard,” but a “triumph that saved millions of lives.” “Tomorrow we’re going to send him the background check legislation,” Pelosi said to her Senate colleague with a wide smile. Schumer predicted that the country is on the “precipice of great change” on the issue of gun safety. “We have a Democratic House that will not flinch. We have a Senate Democratic minority that will not flinch. Most of all, we have a public who is aroused and strong.” Democrats, including Pelosi, have made this a top policy priority in the new Congress, staging public hearings on the topic which had not been held for years in Congress. The legislation also has the backing of a multitude of outside groups, including the former congresswoman and gun control advocate Gabby Giffords, the Brady Campaign, Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action. “Today’s historic gun safety victory in Congress is a testament to courage,” Giffords said in a statement after the passage of the bill. “When the days were darkest, when it looked like the gun lobby’s money and influence would forever silence any debate in Washington about stronger gun laws, courage shone through.” Ted Deutch, a Florida Democrat who represents the district where the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting occurred last year, called the passage “a really incredible moment to be on the House floor as we passed the first piece of gun legislation in decades.” On Tuesday, King urged his Senate colleagues to consider the bill. “I would think that they should let it come to a vote,” he said, adding that the average American supports the universal background checks bill. “This is not going to affect more than probably less than 1% of the American people and the ones it will affect either suffer from mental illness or are criminals. So to me, it’s a phony issue being raised by some of the gun groups,” he said. King understands that public opinion is on his side on this issue. A recent Quinnipiac poll conducted in January found that 92% of Americans support requiring background checks for all gun buyers. Of that 92%, Republicans supported the idea of background checks 89% of the time and Democrats supported it 95%. Despite pressure from the House, Senate Republicans are unlikely to take up the legislation, according to a member of Senate leadership. Majority Whip John Thune – the second ranking Republican in the chamber – told CNN on Tuesday that it’s “unlikely” that the Senate will take up the bill for debate soon.