In the aftermath of the deadly Las Vegas shooting, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has shoved aside the controversial gun silencer bill, telling reporters Tuesday that it ‘is not scheduled.’
The Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement bill, or SHARE Act, received renewed attention Monday with Democrat Hillary Clinton most prominently arguing that its passage could have made things worse.
‘The crowd fled at the sound of gunshots,’ she tweeted. ‘Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer, which the NRA wants to make easier to get.’
Originally, the bill – which would ease restrictions on silencers, among other things – was scheduled to be voted on this week.
‘That bill is not scheduled now, I don’t know when it’s going to be scheduled,’ Ryan said Tuesday, pointing to the majority GOP’s priorities like the budget and tax reform. ‘That is our present focus and the sportsmen’s bill is not scheduled,’ he repeated.
House Speaker Paul Ryan is photographed heading to the GOP leadership’s weekly news conference. At the presser Ryan was asked what Congress has done to keep Americans safe from mass shootings
Later Tuesday, Ryan was asked about the bill by Fox News Channel’s Dana Perino, and he explained that it contained more than just the silencer provision.
‘It’s a big bill, it deals with wet lands, it deals with other sportman’s issues,’ Ryan said. ‘It’s not on our schedule because, quite frankly, we’re focused on tax reform and getting our budge moving right now,’ the speaker reiterated.
At the regularly-scheduled Republican leadership press conference Tuesday, Ryan was also asked by a reporter what Congress has done to keep Americans safe from these continued mass shootings.
Ryan brought up mental health reform.
‘One of the things we’ve learned from these shootings is often underneath this is a diagnosis for mental illness,’ the top House Republican pointed out.
Another reporter asked the speaker, specifically, about Congress quietly passing a bill, which received little fanfare when it crossed President Trump’s desk to be signed in late February, that rolled back Obama-era mental health-themed gun background checks.
In 2013, following the December 2012 Sandy Hook shootings, Obama had written a new rule that would make people receiving Social Security checks for mental health services and those considered unfit to handle their finances register to the national background check database.
The Obama rule would have added 75,000 to the database, NBC News said.
Every Republican in the Senate voted for legislation to kill the rule, joined by four Democrats from red states and the independent Sen. Angus King, I-Maine.
In the House it was also nearly a party-line vote as well, with just two Republicans voting against it and six Democrats voting for it.
Forced to defend that vote on Tuesday, Ryan said, ‘There were people’s right that were getting infringed. It was a little bit more complicated than you describe,’ the speaker told a reporter.
‘Protecting people’s right was very important and that’s what that issue was all about,’ Ryan added.
Pointing to the fact that the gunman could have been mentally ill, Ryan touted the bipartisan legislation that got signed by Obama in December of 2016, shortly before the Democrat left office.
‘That’s why we spent years working on mental illness reform, Congressman Murphy’s bill, and that’s why the House of Representatives passed landmark mental health reform just a year ago,’ Ryan said.
The bill was ushered through Congress by two lawmakers named Murphy, the Democrat, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn, and the Republican, Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa.
Ryan was clearly referring to the efforts made by the Republican Murphy.
The Democratic Murphy, on the other hand, has become the member of Congress mostly loudly calling for gun control in the wake of the Las Vegas massacre.
On Monday, the Connecticut Democrat, who represented Newtown, Connecticut – the site of the Sandy Hook Elementary School murders – as a House member, said he planned to introduce a new background checks bill.
He explained during an appearance on Morning Joe Tuesday that while a background check may not have stopped this particular Las Vegas shooter, that Congress should continue to back ‘evergreen changes’ to gun laws as well.
‘Background checks is still the most likely piece of legislation to get passed through Congress because it enjoys widespread public approval and, frankly, probably is most dispositive on the amount of gun violence that happens every day,’ Murphy said.