WASHINGTON — Voices cracked and emotions ran high as the House Judiciary Committee opened a meeting Thursday to vote on a bill with a swath of gun control proposals, the first push on broad legislation after a recent rash of mass shootings across the country.
In the first hours of the meeting, Democrats such as Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia described the toll of gun violence at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last week, and at a Tulsa, Okla., medical facility Wednesday. In 2012, a gunman killed McBath’s 17-year-old son.
“Do we have the courage, right here in this body, to imagine the phone call parents across Uvalde received last week?” McBath said. “The phone call that confirms our fear, our singular fear, that my child is dead and that I was unable to protect them? Because I know that phone call.”
