Senate Republicans blocked consideration of a gun-violence-prevention bill on Thursday as a school shooting was unfolding in the Los Angeles area. As news broke that Saugus High School was on lockdown with reports of a shooting, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) asked the Senate to consider a bill on universal background checks passed by the House of Representatives, but Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) objected to a “fast track” for the bill.
According to the Los Angeles Times, two students (a 16-year-old and a 14-year-old) were killed and three others (a 15-year-old and two more 14-year-olds) were injured during the school shooting, which took place the morning of November 14. Henry Mayo Hospital, located in the Santa Clarita Valley, posted to Twitter that, as of 9:25 a.m. local time, three patients were in critical condition and a fourth was in good condition.
On Twitter, the sheriff’s office posted that several schools, including Saugus High, were on lockdown. They also advised anyone in the area to shelter in place and notify police if they see anyone matching a suspect’s description in their backyards. Shortly after, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reported on Twitter that a suspect was in custody.
X content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the country in Washington, D.C., Murphy was asking the Senate to consider H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019. The House-passed bill seeks to use existing infrastructure to make background checks a legal requirement for any firearm sale. According to NPR, the bill passed the House in February. While five Republicans were cosponsors, only eight Republicans ended up voting for what advocates considered a landmark piece of gun-violence-prevention legislation.
However, Murphy’s call for “unanimous consent” to consider H.R. 8 was blocked by Hyde-Smith, who objected to the motion “on behalf of Republicans,” according to a Bloomberg News reporter. Hyde-Smith invoked the Second Amendment to criticize a lack of consideration for “efforts to criminalize otherwise lawful conduct with firearms by law-abiding gun owners.”
X content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
“If this so-called common sense, bipartisan legislation was indeed crafted with strong bipartisan input, it shouldn’t have any problem advancing on regular order,” Hyde-Smith said. “Many questions about this legislation need to be answered before it’s forced upon law-abiding gun owners.”
Hyde-Smith is a lifetime member of the NRA, according to her website, and was endorsed by the NRA during her run for Senate. She is the force behind a Senate bill that would block states, localities, or any other organization from maintaining registries of gun owners.
This isn’t the first time consideration of H.R. 8 has been blocked. In March, not long after the bill’s passage in the House, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) objected to further proceedings on H.R. 8, one of two background-check bills the Senate has not taken up despite House passage.
The moment comes after nearly two years of intensified political debate over how to respond to gun violence following the February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. That shooting sparked the March for Our Lives, as youth-led efforts to advocate for gun-violence prevention received new attention and critiques of political inaction escalated.
Editor's Note: This story was updated at 4:30 p.m. on November 14 to reflect that authorities said two students were killed.
Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: How Gun-Violence-Prevention Laws Have Changed Since the Parkland Shooting
