- The House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on bills to prevent gun violence on Thursday.
- The hearing turned into a partisan exercise, with Democrats and Republicans debating gun restrictions.
- Participating remotely, GOP Rep. Greg Steube ranted about proposed restrictions while brandishing guns.
In the midst of a Thursday hearing on new gun violence prevention legislation proposed by congressional Democrats, Republican Rep. Greg Steube of Florida tuned in remotely and ranted against proposed changes to gun laws while brandishing various guns that he owns.
The Florida Republican, apparently participating in the hearing from his home office via video, argued that each of his guns would be banned under proposed changes to gun laws.
At one point, he displayed a Sig Sauer P365XL Pistol, which he said he carries "every single day" in order to "protect myself, my family, my wife, my home."
"I hope that gun is not loaded," said Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, cutting Steube off.
"I'm at my house, I can do whatever I want with my guns," he replied.
Steube then launched into a comparison of the gun restrictions and homicide rates in various American states and cities, including Maryland, Washington, DC, Cook County, Illinois, and his home state of Florida.
"Would the gentleman yield for questions?" asked committee chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, repeating himself five times.
"No, I'm trying to get my point across in the two minutes that I have left," Steube replied. "The murder rate was more — now let me start back over, and I hope you give me my 10 or 15 seconds back that you just took."
The partisan bickering at the hearing — which was scheduled in response to the shooting last week at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas and a push by Democrats to address gun violence — underscores the difficulty of passing legislation on guns, particularly on such a charged partisan issue and with an evenly-divided Senate.
House Democrats unveiled the "Protecting Our Kids Act" this week, which includes a variety of provisions including raising the minimum purchasing age for semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21, banning the import, sale, manufacture, transfer or possession of high-capacity ammunition magazines, and a variety of other tweaks.
Additionally, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at an anti-gun violence event on Wednesday that the House would be voting on an assault weapons ban next week.
But the bill is not expected to pass the Senate, or even necessarily receive a vote.
Instead, a group of senators led by Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas are trying to hammer out a more modest agreement that could potentially reach the 60 votes necessary to pass legislation in the upper chamber.
Murphy penned an op-ed for Fox News on Thursday seeking to assure conservatives that he's not interested in wide-ranging gun restrictions, writing that he doesn't have a "secret agenda to take people's guns away" and that his "agenda isn't radical."
"In order to find common ground, I will need to agree to a smaller set of reforms than I would prefer," wrote Murphy. "I'm willing to pass incremental change, like tightening up our background checks system and helping states pass laws to allow law enforcement to temporarily take guns away from individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others."
"For me, the only thing we cannot do is nothing," he added.