PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A gun control package passed the House on Wednesday. Only five Republicans, including Bucks County-based U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, crossed party lines to vote for it.
The final tally was 223-204 in support of the Protecting Our Kids Act. It is a bundle of eight bills that would raise the minimum age to buy a semiautomatic rifle from 18 to 21, ban large capacity magazines, incentivize safe gun storage devices, establish new gun trafficking penalties, and beef up existing bans on bump stocks and ghost guns, among other measures.
Fitzpatrick joined Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, Chris Jacobs of New York, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, and Fred Upton of Michigan as the only GOP members to go against party leadership and vote in favor of the package, which was supported by all but two Democrats.
Fitzpatrick is the only Republican to support the bills who is also up for re-election.
“Let me be clear: I am a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and all the protections that it entails,” Fitzpatrick said in a statement. “I also believe that we have no higher responsibility as leaders, no higher responsibility as human beings, than to protect our children and to keep our community safe. These are not and must not be mutually exclusive concepts.”
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The debate and vote on the House floor came Wednesday after survivors and family members of the victims of the Buffalo grocery store mass shooting and the Uvalde, Texas school shooting testified before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Among those who spoke was Robb Elementary School fourth grader Miah Cerrillo. She recalled, in video testimony, the horrific moments as she tried to stay alive in her classroom.
“[The gunman] shot my friend that was next to me and I thought he was gonna come back to the room, so I grabbed a little blood and put it all over me,” she recalled.
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Cerrillo said she doesn’t feel safe at school and fears such violence could happen again, which is why she wants “to have security.”
Uvalde pediatrician Dr. Roy Guerrero spoke about seeing the young victims in the emergency room who survived and the ones who were killed.
“Keeping [children] safe from preventable disease, I can do. Keeping them safe from bacteria and brittle bones, I can do,” he said. “But making sure our children are safe from guns, that’s the job of our politicians and leaders.”
“To the lawmakers that feel we do not need stricter gun laws, let me paint a picture for you,” added Zeneta Everhart, the mother of a 21-year-old Tops supermarket employee who was wounded in Buffalo. “My son Zaire has a hole in the right side of his neck, two on his back, and another on his left leg.”
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However, the House package is unlikely to get through the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to avoid a filibuster. A bipartisan group of senators is working on finding common ground in an effort to piece together legislation that could get the necessary votes.