In WASHINGTON — Even the NRA's version of a bill aimed at making it harder for suspected terrorists to get guns is hitting a wall in the Republican-controlled House.
Facing dissent from hardline conservative and libertarian Republicans, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is likely to delay a vote on a watered-down version of Democratic “no fly, no buy” legislation that has the support of the National Rifle Association.
The bill was supposed to get a vote Wednesday, but following pressure from both the left and right it's unclear whether even that can pass anytime soon.
“Last thing we're going to do is rush something to the floor that we don't have right,” Ryan said Wednesday morning, changing his tune from earlier promises to give the face-saving legislation a vote this week. “We want to get it right. We're listening to suggestions from all of our colleagues.”
Thet move comes after loud protests from some of the party's most strident libertarian and Tea Party members over a bill that would give the government three days to convince a judge why someone on the terror watch list shouldn't be able to buy a gun before they get that firearm.
That watered-down legislation, which gun control advocates and Democrats see as completely toothless, has already failed in the Senate in a mostly party-line vote.
Ryan wasn't even going to bring that legislation up until Democrats staged a brazen sit-in on the House floor before the Fourth of July, taking over the chamber to protest Ryan's refusal to let any gun legislation get a vote.
On Wednesday, they and victims of gun violence demanded action in a rally from the Capitol steps — while saying the legislation Ryan is trying to get his party to support doesn't go nearly far enough.
Backed by 91 gun control supporters in orange shirts, symbolizing the 91 people killed by guns everyday in the U.S., those who'd suffered at the hands of weapons demanded that Ryan act.
Catherine Bodine was shot and her 10-year-old daughter was murdered when her ex, fresh out of jail, avoided a background check to buy a gun on a Facebook forum and used it to attack her before killing himself.
Tearful behind sunglasses, she demanded a vote on legislation to close background check loopholes and said if House Republicans don't act, “they don't deserve to represent us.”
Barbara Parker, whose daughter Alison was murdered on live TV in Virginia by a disgruntled former coworker, said, “The NRA is not invincible. We will not give up. We will not go away.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) demanded “real action, not a bill written by the gun lobby.”
And Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil rights hero who was the face of Democrats' House floor sit-in, declared gun control advocates “cannot be quiet, we cannot be patient” in the face of ongoing gun violence.
A supportive crowd of a few hundred gun control protestors cheered the efforts, chanting, “We're with you,” “No fly, no buy” and “Not one more” as they stood in the sweltering heat.
But even as Democrats demanded more action, the House's most conservative members ground in their heels even against Ryan's NRA-backed bill.
“To suggest that weakening Americans' right to hold and bear arms will somehow ameliorate or protect us from terrorism is preposterous,” Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) told CNN today.
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