Dems rail against NRA, Senate, assault weapons as House preps gun control package: 'Crisis of death'

In a House committee meeting Thursday, Democrats railed against the NRA, Republicans, assault weapons and the Senate as they expressed outrage that the U.S. doesn't have tighter gun laws despite mass shootings in recent years. 

"The NRA has too much of a grip on this Congress and on the Senate, it needs to stop," Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., said as the House Judiciary Committee prepared a package of gun-related bills for a vote next week. "There's something gun-crazed about our country that we need to deal with."

"We are in a crisis of death. We have a war on the children of America," Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, said. "Are we not sensitive to Boulder, Atlanta, Tree of Life, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Las Vegas, San Bernardino, Gilroy, Garland, Washington Navy Yard, Sandy Hook Elementary, Virginia Tech, Aurora, the Sikh Temple, Emanuel African Methodist Church or Santa Fe in Texas near my district?"

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She added: "I am calling on all of you to have a sense of humanity, courage, decency, God knows it is a shame on us."

The committee, led by Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., met Thursday morning in a hybrid in-person and virtual meeting called in reaction to the shooting last week in Uvalde, Texas, which killed 19 children and 2 adults. 

Democrats are pressing for legislative action quickly after the disaster, and the committee Thursday is considering the "Protecting our Kids Act." The omnibus package would raise the age to purchase a semiautomatic rifle to 21, tighten regulations on "ghost guns" and ban new large-capacity magazines, among several other things.  

The legislation will likely see a vote on the House floor next week, along with a bill on red flag laws. 

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Among the most emotional moments of the meeting Thursday was when Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., spoke about losing her son to gun violence.

"My son Jordan was only 17 years old when he was shot by a man with a gun who didn't like the loud music that he was playing. I had dreamed of who he would become. I dreamed of watching him walk across the stage for his high school graduation," she said. "The same racially murdered violence that took my son, that murdered 10 Black Americans in Buffalo, is being replayed with casual callousness and despicable frequency." 

Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y., meanwhile recalled that he was in school when the Columbine school shooting happened, and he recounted some of the wrenching details of the Uvalde shooting. Republicans, he said, are not taking the problem seriously. 

"All you have to offer are more guns and apparently the ridiculous idea of fewer school doors," Jones said. 

But Republicans say this package is a hastily-assembled attack on Americans' rights, and that it doesn't have a serious chance of passing the Senate. 

"What we are doing here is just designed to appeal to Democratic primary voters. The bill won't make our schools safer. It will hamper the rights of law-abiding citizens, and it will do nothing to stop mass shootings," Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said. "Democrats are always fixated on curtailing the rights of law-abiding citizens rather than trying to understand why this evil happens."

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Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., meanwhile argued that some of the bills Democrats are proposing, specifically raising the age to purchase assault weapons, are unconstitutional. 

"At least two parts of this proposed hodgepodge raise questions about Constitutionality: The ban on the sale of semiautomatic rifles and shotguns to 18 to 20 year olds, and also the provision about gun storage at home," Bishop said. "Why would there be no analysis or no consideration? But there's a willingness to just ram through the package and the answer is we don't have any patience for you." 

Rep. David Ciciline, D-R.I., pushed back against Bishop, arguing that the Supreme Court would allow for the provisions Bishop talked about. He asked to speak to outline that point, but Bishop shot back: "I don't yield, you'll have plenty of time." 

"The courts have made it pretty clear you cannot deprive young adults any more of the remainder of Americans of their core Second Amendment right to self-defense," Bishop said. 

Other Republicans, meanwhile, argued that Democrats are not taking into account mental health and other factors that cause shootings. "Any time we address gun violence, we should also address the state of affairs of our society, address crime and mental health," Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., said. "We must also address the family unit."

Notably absent from the House omnibus gun package is anything on an assault weapons ban. With a relatively thin margin for error in the chamber and lots of members in tight reelection races, it appears that Democrats may not have the votes for the policy. A senior Democratic aide told Fox News this week, on the possibility of a future effort to ban assault weapons, that "conversations about future legislation are ongoing."

The aide added: "We remain hopeful that every Member will see the urgency of this situation and the need to take common-sense steps to address gun violence and save lives."

At the hearing, Cohen called for action on assault weapons, although he said he would not introduce an amendment to ban them to respect the lawmakers who wrote the omnibus package. 

"Assault weapons are made to kill... when they're hit with an assault weapon they cannot be identified, they are obliterated," Cohen said of children shot with assault weapons. "They are weapons of war and weapons of death and weapons of destruction that we should not permit out here." 

The sense of urgency in the Thursday committee meeting may be increased even more by the fact five people died, including a gunman, in a shooting at a hospital in Tulsa, Okla., Wednesday. 

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But House-passed gun bills will have a very difficult time making it through the Senate, where the 60-vote filibuster threshold gives Republicans a say on any legislation. 

There, around a dozen senators from both parties are participating in talks about potential legislation that would be significantly less far-reaching than anything to come from the House. Among the issues on the table are federal legislation to encourage states to pass red flag laws and expansion of background checks. 

Fox News' Louis Casiano contributed to this report.