Patch, 6/8/2022- Houlahan Leads Passage Of Bipartisan Bills, 'Protecting Our Kids Act'

By Holly Herman

WASHINGTON, D.C.— U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a Chester County Democrat, led an effort by House leadership to break down gun control legislation into seven bills, which resulted in the passage of the Protecting Our Kids Act Wednesday night.

The urgency to pass the gun control legislation followed the May 25 Texas Massacre of 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.

It was the 12th mass shooting at an American school since 1989. It was second highest number of victims since 26 were killed on Dec. 14, 2012 in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

The seven bills move to the Senate for approval.

Houlahan, who represents all of Chester County and southeastern Berks, said Thursday that fatal shooting of the children in Uvalde motivated her to come up with a way to get the votes to pass the legislation immediately.

"As a former teacher and a mom, learning that parents of Uvalde victims had to identify their children by their school clothes broke my heart," Houlahan said Thursday.

The package was originally planned to fall under just one vote. Houlahan then successfully led an effort asking House Leadership to break up the package into individual votes.

"It worked," she said. "Each bill received bipartisan support by a unique set of members, which allows ongoing negotiations to better reflect the sentiment of our nation."

Houlahan voted in favor of each Title in the Protecting Our Kids Act:

  • Title 1: The Raise the Age Act: raising the purchasing age for semi-automatic weapons to 21 years old. The current law allows 18 year olds to buy a semi-automatic rifle (Passed: 228-19; 10 Republicans voted yes)

  • Title 2: Prevent Gun Trafficking Act: Crack down on gun trafficking and straw purchases to get illegal guns off of the streets (Passed: 226-197; 7 Republicans voted yes)

  • Title 3: Untraceable Firearms Act: subjecting ghost gun purchases to background check requirements. (Passed: 226-194; 8 Republicans voted yes)

  • Title 4: Ethan's Law: Strengthening safe storage requirements to protect children from accidental shootings. (Passed: 220-205; 3 Republicans voted yes)

  • Title 5: The Closing the Bump Stock Loophole Act: closing the bump stock loophole to ban these deadly tools from civilian use. (Passed: 233-194; 13 Republicans voted yes)

  • Title 6: - The Keep Americans Safe Act: outlawing high-capacity magazines, which are designed for killing en masse and have been the accessory of choice in the bloodiest mass shootings. (Passed: 220-207; 4 Republicans voted yes)

  • Title 7 : Requiring an annual report of demographic data of those being determined by the National Institute Criminal Background Check System to be ineligible to purchase guns. (Passed: 380-47; 160 Republicans voted yes)

Campaign Staff