Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued this statement on the House Judiciary Committee’s mark-up of additional legislation to prevent gun violence, which includes bills to ban high capacity ammunition magazines, help keep guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves and others, and prevent people convicted of misdemeanor hate crimes from acquiring firearms:

“For nearly 200 days, Senator McConnell has refused to take up House-passed, bipartisan, commonsense legislation to help end the gun violence epidemic in America. Every day of his obstruction, an estimated 100 Americans die from this senseless crisis.

“House Democrats are continuing to accelerate our drumbeat to end this epidemic, building on the progress of H.R. 8 and H.R. 1112: bipartisan legislation to expand background checks that we passed as one of the first acts of our Majority. We salute the leadership of Chairman Nadler and the Judiciary Committee in advancing additional, life-saving legislation to address the gun violence crisis. These critical, commonsense bills would save lives: taking steps to limit the lethality of the deadliest firearms, helping states and local law enforcement keep guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves and others and blocking people convicted of hate crimes from purchasing firearms.

“House Democrats will fight on every front to force Senator McConnell to join us to pass our legislation and to save lives. No one’s political survival is more important than the survival of our children.”