(NewsNation) — As the nation reels in the wake of a series of tragic mass shootings, President Joe Biden will deliver remarks Thursday night on the need for Congress to act to pass laws to combat gun violence.
“He’s going to renew his call for action to stop the epidemic of gun violence that we’ve seen in Uvalde and in Tulsa and in Buffalo in just a few short weeks,” said press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. She said Biden did not plan to announce any new executive actions and that “tonight’s speech is going to focus on what Congress needs to do.”
As debate over federal gun legislation divides the nation, a renewed call for tougher gun laws has permeated Washington following mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were killed; Buffalo, New York, where 10 people died in and outside of a supermarket, and most recently, Tulsa, Oklahoma, where a man who blamed his surgeon for ongoing pain opened fire at a hospital, killing the surgeon and three other people before fatally shooting himself.
When Biden visited the shattered community of Uvalde on Sunday, he was met with chants of “do something” as he departed a church service, Biden pledged: “We will.”
Democrats first attempted to respond to the mass shootings with a domestic terrorism bill in the Senate last week that would have opened debate on difficult questions surrounding hate crimes and gun safety. The bill was blocked.
The House now is swiftly working to put its stamp on gun legislation.
The Democratic legislation, called the Protecting Our Kids Act, was quickly added to the legislative docket and a vote by the full House could come as early as next week.
But partisan positions were clear at a Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday on the legislation that would raise the age limit for purchasing semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21.
The bill also would make it a federal offense to import, manufacture or possess large-capacity magazines and would create a grant program to buy back such magazines.
The legislation builds on the Biden administration’s executive action banning fast-action “bump-stock” devices and “ghost guns.”
However, with Republicans nearly all in opposition, the House action will mostly be symbolic, merely putting lawmakers on record about gun control ahead of this year’s elections.
The Senate is taking a different course, with a bipartisan group striving toward a compromise on gun safety legislation that can win enough GOP support to become law.
Any legislative response to the shootings will have to get through the evenly divided Senate, where support from at least 10 Republicans would be needed to advance the measure to a final vote.
A group of senators has been working privately this week in hopes of finding a consensus.
No major gun legislation has passed the Senate in years — even after the devastating massacre of 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
The Senate did, however, approve a modest measure to encourage compliance with background checks after a church shooting in Texas and the Parkland school shooting in Florida.
The Hill and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
