House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., blasted Republicans' refusal to pass tough gun laws in the wake of the deadly Florida school shooting that claimed at least 17 lives, which she called "useless, preventable violence," The Hill reports.
"It's an assault on our whole country, and they [the victims] are paying the price for our inaction," Pelosi said during her weekly briefing. "Whose political survival, in this body, is more important than the survival of our children? . . . Whose political survival is more important than that?
"Nobody's," she said. "Nobody's."
Pelosi called on House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to quickly consider legislation that would expand background checks, and to create a special committee to address gun violence, like the GOP Select Committee that investigated the 2012 attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
Pelosi had barely left the podium when Ryan appeared, rejected her requests and tried to shift the conversation to mental health, as President Donald Trump and many Republicans have done in the wake of the shooting allegedly carried out by a teenager with mental health issues.
"We want to make sure that if someone is in the mental health system, they don't get a gun if they are not supposed to get a gun," Ryan said.
Democrats largely reject the idea gun violence is simply a mental health issue – besides, they say, Republicans are underfunding the mental health system.
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