WASHINGTON _ Congressional leaders retreated to their familiar positions on gun safety Tuesday, with Republicans saying it is an issue of mental health and Democrats calling for stricter background checks.
The mass shooting at a Las Vegas country music festival Sunday night was the deadliest in American history, with at least 59 people killed and more than 500 injured.
President Donald Trump is planning to visit Las Vegas Wednesday, and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he and Nevada GOP Rep. Mark Amodei will travel with the president. Three of McCarthy's California constituents were killed during the shooting and at least two others remain hospitalized.
The incident, orchestrated by a lone gunman with no suspected ties to foreign terrorist organizations, has sparked yet another debate about gun control and whether Congress has a responsibility to act.
Democrats argue that lawmakers cannot continue to ignore the need to strengthen the country's gun laws, while many Republicans say they've already taken steps to address the issue with mental health legislation they passed last year.
"One of the things that we've learned from these shootings is that often underneath this is a diagnosis of mental illness," Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., said Tuesday, calling the mental health legislation Congress passed just one example of things Congress has done.
That measure aimed to increase the profile of mental health treatment by the federal government by, among other things, creating an assistant secretary for mental health in the federal government as well as streamlining coordination on addressing mental health and substance abuse. It was eventually folded into the 21st Century Cures Act and signed by then-President Barack Obama.
One of the first acts by the current Congress in February was to use the Congressional Review Act to overturn an Obama-era rule that aimed to make it more difficult for mentally disabled people to acquire guns.
Aside from those actions, though, other examples are hard to find. Congress last seriously debated gun control in 2013, after the December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
Democrats led the Senate then and tried to pass background check legislation but the effort died amid Republican opposition.
Since then there have been more shootings and Republicans have blocked Democrats' attempts to offer legislation. GOP lawmakers argue that the bills Democrats have proposed would infringe upon people's Second Amendment rights but do little if anything to prevent mass shootings.
"Democrats are not interested in taking people's hunting guns away from them or their handguns," House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer said Tuesday.
What Democrats want to do is ensure people who should not have guns cannot purchase them legally, the Maryland Democrat said."Does that mean they won't get them illegally? Maybe not," Hoyer acknowledged.
Nonetheless, Democrats are using the Las Vegas shooting to call for a vote on universal background legislation and requesting GOP leaders form a select committee to examine other legislative solutions. GOP leaders could at least agree to a bipartisan task force, Hoyer said.
"It is incomprehensible that the president or others would say this is not the time to debate this," he said. "When is the time to debate this?"
Republicans, ironically, are moving in the other direction with a bill that includes a provision to relax restrictions on gun silencers, Hoyer said, noting that silencers make it more difficult for law enforcement to find out where gunfire is originating.
GOP leaders had been considering bringing that bill to the floor soon but currently have no plans to do so.
"That bill is not scheduled now. I don't know when it's going to be scheduled," Ryan said. "Right now we're focused on passing our budget."
The longstanding partisan divide on gun control is unlikely to let up anytime soon. Hoyer accused Republicans of cowering to the National Rifle Association, while also acknowledging that pushing for stronger gun control laws has not helped Democrats in political campaigns.
Democrats' sit-in on the House floor following last year's mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando resonated with the American people, but that didn't translate to votes, Hoyer said.
"It doesn't seem to make a great difference at that ballot box, and that's frustrating," he said, noting Democrats will still continue to talk about the issue.
But they aren't likely to organize another sit-in, according to another leader.
Democratic Caucus Vice Chairwoman Linda Sanchez said there was no mention of orchestrating another sit-in on the House floor at this morning's caucus meeting in response to the Vegas shooting.
The California Democrat said while last year's protest galvanized the nation's attention, a flood of ethics complaints filed against members for violating a host of House rules seemed to backfire on the cause.
