Preventing Gun Violence
Rep. DeGette, who has represented Columbine High School, has been an outspoken advocate for enacting new commonsense gun safety measures to help protect our communities. She is a member of the House's Gun Violence Prevention Task Force and, in March of 2021, reintroduced legislation to ban high-capacity gun magazines.
Banning High-Capacity Gun Magazines
Rep. DeGette is a lead sponsor of the Keep Americans Safe Act to reinstate the nation's ban on the sale, transfer or possession of high-capacity gun magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.
The legislation seeks to address a common thread found in some of the nation's most high-profile mass shootings, which is the use of high-capacity magazines that enable a shooter to fire dozens of rounds without having to stop and reload. In addition to banning the sale of high-capacity magazines, it would also make federal funds available to buy back large-capacity magazines that are already legally owned.
The federal government acted to ban high-capacity magazines in 1994. That ban, however, expired in 2004 and has not yet been reinstated by Congress. There's a growing amount of evidence that suggests reinstating the ban would be one of the most effective ways to help protect our communities from the threat of gun violence.
The legislation DeGette introduced to reinstate the ban on such magazines was approved by the House Judiciary Committee in 2019.
Read more about DeGette's legislation here.
Enhancing Background Checks
In addition to banning the sale of high-capacity gun magazines, Rep. DeGette has sponsored several key pieces of legislation aimed at preventing gun violence in our communities – including the Bipartisan Background Checks Act and the Enhanced Background Checks Act. These two critical bills would help strengthening our nation's system of background check that were included in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act President Biden signed into law in 2022.
Getting Assault Weapons Off Our Streets
Rep. DeGette is also a lead sponsor of legislation to reinstate a nationwide ban on military-style assault weapons, such as the AR-15, which have consistently been used to perpetrate some of the nation's deadliest mass shootings. The legislation, which DeGette first sponsored in the wake of the horrific shooting that took place at Columbine High School, in her district, in 1999, was approved by the U.S. House for the first time in decades in 2022.