Live coverage: House gun violence hearing
The House Oversight and Reform Committee will hear testimony on Wednesday in the wake of recent mass shootings that killed dozens of people.
Among the expected witnesses is a fourth grader who survived a mass shooting just two weeks ago at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
Democrats are hoping that the testimony will aid them in making new gun restrictions a reality.
Follow The Hill’s live coverage below:
Maloney: ‘We are failing our children’
10:14 a.m.
House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) opened Wednesday’s hearing by thanking the witnesses who have survived or lost loved ones in recent mass shootings for their “incredible courage,” calling on her colleagues to enact gun control measures.
“Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in our country,” Maloney said. “As a society, we are failing our children and we are failing each other.”
She chastised Republicans who have blamed mental illness, violent video games and multiple school entry points for the cause of gun violence, calling the issue a “uniquely American tragedy.”
“They have blamed everything but guns,” she said. “But we know the United States does not have a monopoly on mental illness, video games or any other excuse. What America does have is widespread access to guns.”
Maloney called for a ban on assault rifles and greater accountability for the gun industry, pointing to the committee’s ongoing investigation into the manufacturing, sale and marketing of weapons that have been used in mass shootings.
She called an eight-bill gun package expected to come to a vote in the House later today as “crucial first step” to address gun violence.
“My goal for today’s hearing is simple,” Maloney said. “I am asking every member of this committee to listen with an open heart to the brave witnesses who have come forward to tell their stories about how gun violence has impacted their lives.”
-Zach Schonfeld
Gun violence nonprofit executive to rail against gun industry in prepared remarks
9:45 a.m.
Nick Suplina, the senior vice president for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety, plans to leverage his prepared remarks at Wednesday’s hearing to rail against the gun industry, calling for more accountability.
“There is no other way to put it: the gun industry has grown tremendously over the last two decades, business is booming, profits are breaking records,” Suplina plans to say. “And so are rates of gun violence.”
Suplina, who will appear in the hearing’s second panel of witnesses, will reference by name the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which Congress passed in 2005 to grant gun manufacturers broad immunity from lawsuits over crimes committed with their products, although the law carves out certain exceptions.
Democratic state legislatures have shown a renewed interest in holding firearms manufacturers liable for gun violence after recent mass shootings.
“The gun industry, for its part, has innovated not to make guns — or us — safer, but to make them more dangerous, more likely to evade regulation and its business more profitable,” Suplina plans to say.
He will point to the manufacture of bump stocks, devices that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire much more rapidly, and the creation of “impossible-to-trace” ghost guns, noting that more than one million of the industry’s firearms were recovered in connection to crimes between 2016 and 2020.
“The industry has done almost nothing to take steps to prevent diversion of guns into the criminal market and to gun traffickers,” Suplina will say.
Suplina will also criticize the sales of AR-15-style rifles, which were reportedly used in both the Uvalde shooting and a massacre at a Buffalo, N.Y. supermarket where officials say the gunman deliberately targeted Black people and killed ten.
“They have normalized the AR platform because its simplicity and modularity makes it easy for gun owners to customize their rifles or build them from scratch, necessitating a huge, profitable aftermarket for parts and accessories,” Suplina will say.
-Zach Schonfeld
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