Georgia U.S. Rep. Johnson says fate of gun control act grim against Senate filibuster
U.S. House Democrats are upping the pressure on their Senate colleagues to do away with the filibuster. The calls come after the House passed the wide-ranging gun control bill on Wednesday — the Protecting Our Kids Act. It includes raising the legal age to buy semi-automatic rifles to 21.
Despite a rash of recent mass shootings in 2022, the legislation is all but dead on arrival when it gets to the Senate. Passing it would take 10 Republicans to sign-on, which, by all accounts, just won’t happen.
Two of the most deadly shootings in recent weeks are an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where a shooter used an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to kill 19 children and two teachers, who were mostly of Mexican-American descent.
Just days prior in Buffalo, New York, 10 mostly-Black shoppers were killed with a similar semi-automatic rifle.
Democratic Congressman Hank Johnson is one of several Georgians testifying during a hearing led by the Committee on Oversight and Reform on the epidemic of gun violence in America.
He’s also one of the most vocal representatives about ending the Senate filibuster, which the Republican-controlled Senate uses to end debate on a bill. According to the U.S. Senate website, a filibuster verbatim is an attempt to block or delay “action on a bill or other matter by debating it at length, by offering numerous procedural motions, or by any other delaying or obstructive actions.”
When Johnson spoke to WABE amid his testimony, he started by detailing what the likely fate is of the Protecting Our Kids Act, as the Senate is currently stacked.
Lily Oppenheimer contributed to this report.
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