The Protecting Our Kids Act, a compilation of eight gun-related bills, includes language to increase the age limit to purchase certain semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21, codify regulations on bump stocks, prohibit the “import, sale, manufacture, and possession of large-capacity magazines,” and increase restrictions on the storage of firearms. It further includes language that would ban straw purchases of firearms.
Five Republicans — Reps. Anthony Gonzalez, Brian Fitzpatrick, Adam Kinzinger, Chris Jacobs, and Fred Upton — bucked party lines and voted in favor of the measure. Jacobs recently declared he was abandoning his reelection bid after facing backlash for voicing support for an assault weapons ban and increasing the age to buy a firearm. Centrist Democratic Reps. Kurt Schrader of Oregon and Jared Golden of Maine voted against the legislation. The final vote tally was 223-204.
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While the measure faces an uphill battle in the upper chamber, with Republicans dubious to back the package, top Democrats claimed that the May 14 grocery store shooting in Buffalo, New York, that resulted in 10 dead; the May 24 Uvalde, Texas, elementary school massacre that ended in the death of 19 children and two teachers; the June 1 Tulsa, Oklahoma, hospital shooting that resulted in five dead; and the mass shooting on Philadelphia’s South Street that led to three deaths and several injuries over the weekend indicate that significant reforms are warranted.
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“The mass shootings in Buffalo, Uvalde, Tulsa, and all too many cities — just this past weekend, we learned of yet another horrific incident in Philadelphia, and yet more carnage in Tennessee, Arizona, Virginia, [and] South Carolina, and those are just the stories we saw in the news,” House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who held a rare recess-week hearing to move the bills through committee last week, announced on the floor before the vote.
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“Day after day, we see more lives lost to gun violence in our schools, on our streets, in our houses of worship, in our homes, touching every region of the country, and we hear from our constituents crying out for us to take action. Today, we heed that call. HR 7910, the Protecting Our Kids Act, is comprehensive legislation to address the scourge of gun violence, a blight that killed nearly 45,000 Americans in 2020 alone.”
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The legislation, meanwhile, received strong pushback from Republicans, who claimed that the changes wouldn’t have prevented the recent shootings and would infringe on law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights.
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