Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee last year reintroduced the Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act that she had first proposed in 2019. Sheikh was a Pakistani exchange student murdered in a 2018 mass shooting at Santa Fe High School 35 miles south of Houston. Nine others were also murdered. The bill would set a minimum age for gun ownership of 21, create a national firearms registry, and mandate licensing as well as psychological evaluations for gun buyers.
That’s considerably stronger than what other House Democrats are preparing to propose under the "Protect Our Kids Act." It’s a combination of eight other bills that include provisions raising the age from 18 to 21 to buy a semiautomatic rifle, make it a federal offense to sell, make, or possess high-capacity magazines, and tighten penalties for gun traffickers. The bill could be taken up in committee as early as Thursday, and Jackson Lee is one of its most avid supporters.
That combo has a much better chance of passage in the House than Jackson Lee’s bill, to be sure. But it nonetheless faces big odds against it because of Republican intransigence in the Senate. The congresswoman remains optimistic not only about the new package passing the House, but also about the chance an assault weapons ban will be introduced and passed in the House.