Congress returns to D.C. with gun control on the brain

The following is an excerpt from Blaze Media’s daily Capitol Hill Brief email newsletter:

Lawmakers return to Capitol Hill today after their annual summer break, and the two biggest questions in the air are what’s going to happen with spending and whether Congress will do anything on gun control.

Congress passed a deal on the debt limit and the budget deal before recess started, but it still needs to take care of appropriations before the fiscal year ends at the end of this month. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., is currently predicting that lawmakers will go with one of their typical plays and punt the deadline to later in the year. Meanwhile, Senate appropriators are planning to move forward on as many as four spending bills this week.

On the gun control front, things are still murky. President Trump has apparently cooled on some of his earlier ideas. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he’s not going to hold a vote on gun control unless it has the president’s support. A top GOP senator wants the president to “set some guidelines” on what kind of legislation he would get behind. Perhaps we’ll get a clearer picture this week.

Democrats, naturally, aren’t going to let the issue go easily. Over the break, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told caucus members that “we have to keep our foot on the gas on this issue … cannot let it go away.”

One thing is clear: Lawmakers who don’t want to see gun and property rights take another hit in the name of political pressure have a long, hard road ahead of them this fall.

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