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.
