Rep. Greg Pence
Rep. Greg Pence, R-Indiana, voted against legislation in response to recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, that would raise the age limit for purchasing a semi-automatic rifle and prohibit the sale of ammunition magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds.
The legislation, which cleared the House in a series of votes Wednesday, has almost no chance of becoming law as the Senate pursues negotiations focused on improving mental health programs, bolstering school security and enhancing background checks, The Associated Press reported. But the House bill does allow Democratic lawmakers a chance to frame for voters in November where they stand on policies that polls show are widely supported.
Pence, who is seeking a third term in Congress, voted against every provision in the bill. He was asked by The Republic specifically about his position on the content of the Protecting Our Kids Act and why he voted as he did.
“I have zero confidence that Nancy Pelosi and the far-left Democrats in Washington know how to protect Hoosier children from the next school violence situation,” Pence said in a statement issued through his spokeswoman Hannah Osantowske. “Nancy Pelosi wants to mandate the failed policies of San Francisco in every home across Indiana and that is something I will never support. Left-wing Democrats in Washington have again showed they have no appetite at all to seek common ground and their allies in the media will once again fail to call them out for their partisan extremism.”
The vote came hours after a House committee heard wrenching testimony from recent shooting victims and family members, including from 11-year-old girl Miah Cerrillo, who covered herself with a dead classmate’s blood to avoid being shot at the Uvalde elementary school, according to wire reports.
The seemingly never-ending cycle of mass shootings in the United States has rarely stirred Congress to act. But the shooting of 19 children — including a 10-year-old boy who had relatives in Columbus — and two teachers in Uvalde has revived efforts in a way that has lawmakers from both parties talking about the need to respond.
“It’s sickening, it’s sickening that our children are forced to live in this constant fear,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Pelosi said the House vote would “make history by making progress.” But it’s unclear where the House measure will go after Wednesday’s vote, given that Republicans were adamant in their opposition.
Pence’s opponent in the November election, Democrat Cynthia “Cinde” Wirth, said she is in favor of the bill in its current form, characterizing the legislation as “a good, common-sense measure.”
“The way (the legislation) stands today, I would vote for it,” Wirth said. “…I’m not in favor of taking people’s guns, certainly. I grew up here in Indiana as part of a family that hunted, and I grew up around guns just like a lot of people did here. I do like that it limits semi-automatic rifles to age 21. I like that it’s looking at third-party purchases. It’s addressing registration of firearms, which seems very intuitive given that we register our cars. It just makes sense to me. It is placing limitations on large-capacity magazines and clips and then it also addresses untraceable guns, so guns without serial numbers of ghost guns.”
“There’s nothing in (the bill) that I think takes away anyone’s right or does a disservice to anyone,” Wirth said. “I think it’s just some common-sense measures to keep everyone safe.”
The bill stitches together a variety of proposals Democrats had introduced before the recent shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, according to wire reports. The suspects in the shootings at the Uvalde, elementary school and Buffalo supermarket were both age 18, authorities say, when they bought the semi-automatic weapons used in the attacks. The bill would increase the minimum age to buy such weapons to 21.
The House bill also includes incentives designed to increase the use of safe gun storage devises and creates penalties for violating safe storage requirements, providing for a fine and imprisonment of up to five years if a gun is not properly stored and is subsequently used by a minor to injure or kill themselves or another individual.
It also builds on the Biden administration’s executive action banning fast-action “bump-stock” devices and “ghost guns” that are assembled without serial numbers.
Wirth, who was formerly a teacher at CSA New Tech High School, recalled her students feeling “terrified to be in a school” following the 2018 mass shooting at Parkland High School in Florida that left 17 students dead. She said she also is in favor of gun safety courses, “red flag” laws and extended background checks.
“To have a safe society and have kids feel safe at school — as we’re hearing kids from involve a 11-year-old girl who survived said, ‘I don’t feel safe at school anymore’ — that’s not because of the doors or the locks,” Wirth said. “It’s because of the access to guns.”
