Tal Kopan Feb. 6, 2019 Updated: Feb. 6, 2019 5:09 p.m.
Aalayah Eastmond (center), a survivor of the Parkland, Fla., mass shooting, testifies on gun control at a House hearing.
WASHINGTON — Newly empowered House Democrats convened the first congressional hearing on gun violence in nearly a decade Wednesday, setting the stage for likely passage of gun control legislation sponsored by a Bay Area lawmaker.
If Wednesday’s hearing is any indication, it’s going to be an emotional journey.
From the outset, the testimony of the witnesses before the House Judiciary Committee was moving and personal. The first person to speak was Aalayah Eastmond, a survivor of the mass shooting last February at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., who detailed her experience hiding under the body of a slain classmate to avoid the killer’s bullets.
Eastmond received a standing ovation from a crowd stocked with gun control advocates, prompting committee Chairman Jerry Nadler of New York to remind audience members that they could not interrupt the hearing.
Other witnesses who offered personal testimony included an activist and organizer from Chicago, Diane Latiker, who opens her home to at-risk youths; Johns Hopkins Hospital trauma surgeon and anti-gun violence activist Dr. Joseph Sakran, himself a survivor of a gunshot wound; a Baltimore police domestic violence unit commander, Maj. Sabrina Tapp-Harper; and Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo.
Republicans invited a sexual assault survivor and gun rights advocate, Savannah Lindquist, who argued a case for a right to self-defense that she says she was denied because of campus gun bans.
Included on the committee also were members who have been touched by gun violence. Newly elected Democratic Reps. Lucy McBath of Georgia and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell of Florida each spoke of loved ones who had been shot to death. McBath’s son was killed in an argument over loud music, prompting her to become an activist, and Mucarsel-Powell’s father was gunned down in Ecuador when she was in her 20s.
The hearing served as a precursor to a fight over legislation sponsored by Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, that would expand the requirement for background checks of gun purchasers to those buying firearms in private sales. Those would include gun shows and online sales. His bill is likely to become the first major gun control measure to pass either chamber of Congress in several years, now that Democrats are in the House majority.
Thompson, who is not a Judiciary Committee member, watched from the audience as the panel’s Democrats praised his legislation and Republicans argued against it, though five GOP House members are co-sponsors of the bill.
Republicans argued that the bill would mainly be an added burden for legal gun buyers and sellers and that criminals would simply ignore it. They repeatedly made the case, as Lindquist did, that access to guns is important for self-defense.
The committee’s top Republican, Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, said Congress’ anti-gun violence efforts would be better directed at boosting access to mental health treatment.
“These are the things that we can continue to find common ground — at the same time not offering a palliative exercise to say, ‘Here’s something that will make you feel better but not help you in the end,’ ” Collins said.
But Democrats signaled they would be gearing up for far more than the background check legislation, which could move toward a vote by the end of the month but faces an uphill climb in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Witnesses and Democratic lawmakers also made the case for a federal law that would allow a court to confiscate guns from people who are a potential danger to themselves or others, similar to a law in California. They also argued for increasing funding to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to enforce gun laws, and removing a prohibition on federal funding for research on guns as a public health problem.
Although much of the attention at Wednesday’s hearing was on mass shootings, witnesses also noted that gun violence disproportionately affects minority communities and escalates many cases of domestic violence.
She opens her home on the South Side of Chicago as a community center for neighborhood children and founded an organization to help youths find an alternative to gang activity. But she said it’s hard to get support.