Pelosi Urges Speaker Ryan to Hold a Vote on Comprehensive Background Checks – By Melanie Arter (cnsnews.com) / March 2 2018
(CNSNews.com) – House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called on House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to schedule a vote on comprehensive gun background checks, saying it would win, because it has bipartisan support.
Pelosi said she was “encouraged” by what President Donald Trump had to say at a White House meeting with bipartisan lawmakers on Wednesday on school safety.
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“We heard the president say– agree that we should fix NICS and re-examine the Dickey Amendment so that CDC can research the public health crisis. That actually is the bill that Stephanie Murphy hopefully that will be incorporated in whatever we do to go forward,” Pelosi said.
The Dickey Amendment, named after Rep. Jay Dickey (R-Ark.) who died last year, was inserted as a rider in an omnibus spending bill in 1996. It prohibited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using federal funds earmarked for injury prevention to be used to advocate or promote gun control.
“The president agreed that we need to ban bump stocks. He thinks he can do it by executive order. I don’t think so. I think it needs to be done legislatively, but we agree that they should be banned,” Pelosi said.
The president also embraced “the idea of gun violence restraining orders, which empower law enforcement to intervene when someone is a threat to themselves or to others,” Pelosi said. “This again — common sense.
“The president stated unequivocally also that we should drop concealed carry reciprocity from the Fix NICS bill, and he made a commitment to take action on comprehensive background checks,” she said.
Pelosi complained that Trump’s budget reduced funding for NICS.
“Unfortunately, in the Trump budget it proposed for NICS funding, his administration — they’ve done two things. In previous actions, they’ve tried to take names off the NICS list, and in the budget, they reduced the funding for NICS, but I think now — more awareness on the president’s part about what NICS is about. We’ll see a better attention to that,” she said.
Pelosi claimed that there was “overwhelming public support” for an assault weapons ban – “not as high as the background checks, but overwhelming public support.”
“That might take longer. We need to have the best package we can get done now that is good enough with comprehensive background checks and the other items that I mentioned,” she said. “This is a tipping point in our country, and I’m really very proud of the work that Mike Thompson has done as chairman of our task force.”
She said House Democrats filed a discharge petition of the Thompson-King background check bill, and it “has a high number of signatures.” They also signed the discharge petition for “the Background Check Completion Act, closing the loophole of what allows someone like the Charleston shooter to purchase a gun even though the FBI had not completed the background check,” Pelosi said.
The Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act of 2017 (H.R. 4240), sponsored by Reps. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) and Peter King (R-N.Y.) expands background checks to include all commercial firearm sales, including those taking place at gun shows, over the Internet, or in classified ads, while providing reasonable exceptions for family and friend transfers.
“I know if the comprehensive bill came to the floor and background checks, it would win, so we’re just saying to the speaker: give us a vote. Just give us a vote. Again, all of this has bipartisan support, and that is really important,” Pelosi said.
