Skip to main content

Fixing the Breakdown: Congress on the Hot Seat as Gun Debate Ramps Up

Share This article

WASHINGTON – The gun debate is front and center on Capitol Hill as lawmakers return to work Monday following a 10-day break.

They face growing pressure after the deadly Feb. 14 shooting at Parkland, Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 people.

But with no clear direction, can they make any meaningful reform?

President Donald Trump is floating ideas, even signaling a willingness to break with the National Rifle Association on age restrictions and bump stocks.

"It doesn't seem to make sense that you have to wait until you are 21 years old to get a pistol, but to get a gun like this maniac used in the school, you get that at 18," Trump said Saturday on Fox News. "That doesn't make sense. And frankly, I explained that to the NRA."

The NRA is sharply pushing back against calls to raise the age limit on an AR-15 automatic rifle like the one the Florida gunman used.

One area the NRA and Trump appear to agree on is securing schools, with Trump calling for some teachers to carry guns, although he believes it's ultimately "up to the states."

"If they had concealed permits, you wouldn't have this problem today," Trump said on Fox News.

Meanwhile, some Florida state legislators want Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel suspended over what they call "incompetence and neglect of duty" in the months leading up to the Parkland school tragedy.

"Sheriff Israel failed to maintain a culture of alertness, vigilance and thoroughness amongst his deputies," House Speaker Richard Corcoran wrote in a letter Sunday. "As a result of Sheriff Israel's failures, students and teachers died."

The state is launching an investigation into how local law enforcement responded to the shooting.

The probe comes at the request of Gov. Rick Scott after video shows at least one sheriff's deputy standing outside the school instead of running inside to engage the gunman.

In Washington, some lawmakers, like Rep. Steve Scalise, R-LA, say those kinds of breakdowns and the fact that so many laws already on the books were not enforced, shows that no magic bill from Congress will stop another shooting from happening again.

The most likely legislative option is bolstering the background check system for guns, but with so many competing ideas, it's hard to say what Washington will do.

Share This article

About The Author

Jenna
Browder

Jenna Browder co-hosts Faith Nation and is a network correspondent for CBN News. She has interviewed many prominent national figures from both sides of the political aisle, including presidents, cabinet secretaries, lawmakers, and other high-ranking officials. Jenna grew up in the small mountain town of Gunnison, Colorado and graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she studied journalism. Her first TV jobs were at CBS affiliates in Cheyenne, Wyoming and Monroe, Louisiana where she anchored the nightly news. She came to Washington, D.C. in 2016. Getting to cover that year's