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The survivors-turned-activists of Parkland, Fla., created by the massacre that irrevocably changed the tight knit community, will spend the day quietly. Grieving and reflecting.

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“Thursday is going to be like a train: It’s all going to hit,” 21 year-old Jammal Lemy, a 2017 Stoneman Douglas graduate who co-founded March for Our Lives, 21 year-old Jammal Lemy, a 2017 Stoneman Douglas graduate who co-founded March for Our Lives, told the New York Times's Patricia Mezzei.

“You don't get over something like this. You never can. You can't get over something that never should have happened,” March for Our Lives's David Hogg told March for Our Lives's David Hogg told NPR Morning Edition host David Greene.

“It’s Valentine’s Day. As I remember you, grief washes over me. But that grief emboldens me to fight for change. I wish I could take all the bullets for you,” Lori Alhadeff wrote in an open letter to her daughter Alyssa, who was killed.

“Tectonic shift”: Parents and peers turned their grief into action by forming the gun violence prevention movement March for Our Lives, mobilizing activists across the country to demand stricter gun laws through walkouts, marches, and voter registration drives. They have thus far seen some concrete results:

In the states: “The gun safety movement experienced a tectonic shift in 2018,” according to the “Republican and Democrat legislators in 26 states and DC heeded their calls to action and, working from the foundations laid by advocates over the past few decades, enacted 67 new gun safety laws . With support from [former Rep. Gabby] Giffords, states passed extreme risk protection orders, funded urban gun violence reduction programs, raised the minimum age to buy guns, banned ghost guns and bump stocks, disarmed domestic abusers, and much more. Voters in Washington State resoundingly approved the year’s only gun safety ballot measure, enacting new restrictions on semiautomatic rifles and encouraging safe firearm storage.” “The gun safety movement experienced a tectonic shift in 2018,” according to the Giffords Law Center's gun law trendwatch . With support from [former Rep. Gabby] Giffords, states passed extreme risk protection orders, funded urban gun violence reduction programs, raised the minimum age to buy guns, banned ghost guns and bump stocks, disarmed domestic abusers, and much more. Voters in Washington State resoundingly approved the year’s only gun safety ballot measure, enacting new restrictions on semiautomatic rifles and encouraging safe firearm storage.”

An electoral shift: John Della Volpe, the director of Polling at Harvard's Institute of Politics credited the Parkland students with sparking in the 2018 midterms "the highest youth turnout in at least 32 years, along with the most significant partisan shift (+24 Democrat) of any group in the electorate since 2014."

“For the last year, our polling has consistently shown that school shootings was the dominant issue for young voters, and highly correlated with participation,” Della Volpe added. “The Parkland students deserve a tremendous amount of credit; they were the catalyst. The combination of Emma González calling BS, followed by Ryan Deitsch challenging Marco Rubio on national TV, and David Hogg defiantly lifting his right arm in solidarity with millions, are to today’s America, what four young black students refusing to leave a Woolworth's lunch counter were to the America of the 1960s. "

And they're not going anywhere: The Guardian's Lois Beckett reports on the Parkland activists' next steps aimed at 2020. "Today, Hogg and the other students ... are focusing on the quiet, unglamorous work of grassroots organizing," Beckett reports. "The group is training eight regional directors to help build out their March for Our Lives local chapters. They want to prepare for the 2020 presidential election by expanding the national reach of their youth voter registration and turnout operation."

“I work 110-plus hours a week. I’ve been on three national tours, around the country in the last 10 months. I’ve been to 41 states plus DC. . . . This work doesn’t stop,” Matt Deitsch, the director of strategy at March for Our Lives who works alongside Jaclyn Corin, told the Associated Press's Kelli Kennedy.

Change at a federal level has been a different story. At the end of last year, the Trump administration issued a ban on bump stocks, “the attachments that enable semiautomatic rifles to fire in sustained, rapid bursts and that a gunman used to massacre 58 people and wound hundreds of others at a Las Vegas concert in October 2017.” But Congress has not passed any major legislation to curtail the purchase or use of guns since Parkland.

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But there are some signs momentum is shifting, if slowly, following the death of almost 40,000 people in 2017 from gun violence, the highest in more than 20 years according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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The new Democratic majority in the House has vowed to make gun control a top issue. Lawmakers last week held a marathon hearing titled “Preventing Gun Violence: A Call to Action,” the first such hearing in nearly a decade. But it's still an uphill climb for gun-control advocates in Washington.

Nevertheless, around two dozen gun control bills so far have been filed in the House or Senate in the 116th Congress.

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Bipartisan Background Checks Act: The House Judiciary Committee yesterday passed a measure requiring background checks on all firearm sales and gun transfers in the United States, "the most significant gun-control legislation to advance this far in Congress in years," according to my colleague Katie Zezima.

What it does: “The bill would require gun sellers, including private vendors, to conduct background checks on buyers,” “The bill would require gun sellers, including private vendors, to conduct background checks on buyers,” per Roll Call's Emily Kopp

Bipartisanship? " The bill also has the support of at least five Republicans, a rare feat given the issue often has cleaved along party lines. The committee also voted 23 to 15 to advance a bill that would close a loophole in the current background-check law that allows a gun purchase if a check is not completed in three days,” reports Zezima.

“There is a clear consensus among academics, public health experts and law enforcement personnel that universal background checks would greatly enhance public safety,” Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said. “Despite the need to take action, however, Congress for too long has done virtually nothing.”

Another effort: Democrats Tuesday reintroduced the "Keep Americans Safe Act,” which would ban high-capacity magazines, per CNN's Liz Landers. The bill has no Republican co-sponsors so far.

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What it does: “The Democratic legislation, co-sponsored by Rep. Ted Deutch of Florida and Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, would ban any magazine that exceeds 10 rounds of ammunition,” Landers reports.

“The fact is that these high-capacity magazines allow someone to fire off more than 10 rounds in a row,” Deutch told CNN. “You don't need that if you're a hunter, you don't need that for any purpose. You don't need that for sporting purposes.”

Red-flag law: Earlier in January, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) reintroduced legislation that "seeks to encourage states to pass red-flag laws that would make it easier for courts to disarm dangerous people," per South Florida Sun Sentinel's Skyler Swisher. Rubio was among the 2018 candidates who recieved the most campaign contributions from the National Rifle Association's PAC at $9,900.

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After passage in Florida, Rubio's bill provides funding at the federal level for states to implement their own red-flag laws.

“Rubio first introduced the bill in March, but it did not pass. Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson also supported the bill. Nelson lost his reelection bid to outgoing Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who signed Florida’s measure into state law,” per Swisher.

REMINDER: In Parkland's wake, Trump "explicitly called on live television for raising the age limit to purchase rifles and backed 2013 legislation for near-universal background checks. He later told lawmakers that while the N.R.A. has “great power over you people, they have less power over me,'" per the Times. Trump quickly abandoned that pledge and embraced an NRA plan increase the number of armed teachers and make some improvements to the background check system.

THE NUMBERS: While the urgency for tightened gun laws has faded, half of the country is concerned that a mass shooting could happen in their community, according to a brand new NPR/PBS NewsHouse/Marist poll released this morning. Some of the key findings:

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Fifty-nine percent of Americans say their first reaction when hearing about a mass shooting is the country needs stricter gun laws, while 25 percent say their first thought is more people need to carry a gun.

"[Eighty] percent of Democrats and 53 percent of independents think gun laws need to be stricter, while 59 percent of Republicans think they need to be kept as they are," per NPR's Domenico Montanaro.

“According to the poll, while Americans favor employing school resource officers or armed guards in schools (72 percent said it would make a difference), arming teachers was the least popular (39 percent) in a list of policy options to reduce gun violence. The list included requiring background checks at gun shows or private sales (82 percent); requiring mental health checks (79 percent); banning high-capacity ammunition clips (65 percent); creating a national database to track all gun sales (64 percent); and banning the sale of semiautomatic assault-style weapons (60 percent)," per Montanaro.

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On The Hill

ON THE FRONTLINES OF CHANGE: Freshman Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) last November unseated Karen Handel to win a suburban Atlanta district that's historically gone Republican. McBath's journey to Capitol Hill stems from personal tragedy: her unarmed 17-year-old son Jordan Davis was shot and killed in 2012 after a dispute over “loud music.” Davis would have turned 24 this coming weekend.

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The mother-turned-activist-turned-congresswoman is using her pain to bring "gun sense" to Washington. Power Up spoke with McBath shortly after the House Judiciary Committee passed universal background check legislation. “I'm so happy right now,” she told us as her aide handed her the phone. Our conversation was edited for length and clarity.

Power Up: Why are you so happy?

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McBath: I'm happy because we have passed a bipartisan measure that I’ve been working on for six years — federal background checks for gun sales ... I’ve been sitting out in the audience in these bill markups for anything that has to do with gun legislation for the past 6 years ... but to be out there as a policymaker and see this measure passed today was monumental ... All the work has finally not been done in vain. So I just kept thinking about my son and all the survivors and the Parkland children and everyone depending on us to truly keep them safe and today was a monumental step in the right direction.

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Power Up: What motivates you to continue to fight for gun control, even with substantial hurdles ahead?

McBath: What drives me every single day is that if I don't do this work, more people [will] continue to die like my son . . . That's what gets me up every single morning and I feel like I can’t work fast enough because so many people are depending on democracy to work for them so that they don't live in fear of being gunned down.

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Power Up: There's been a recent shift in the debate over gun control — it was an integral part of your winning platform in November. How difficult will it be to pass something in the Senate?

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McBath: There has been a cultural shift and a change . . . it's not just myself but others in the freshman class. We ran on gun safety. One of my major platforms was on guns and people kept telling me, 'Don't run on guns, you'll sabotage yourself.' But there are people who have had enough ... I think this movement will continue to grow and I have no doubt that there is more gun sense coming to the Hill. There is a whole demographic of young people that will be voting, fighting for their own future and lives and our legislatures are not doing that. My son is not here —he is here in spirit."

Power Up: Are there Republicans with whom you've discussed gun control legislation who are amenable to supporting something?

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McBath: I would hope there are — a couple we’re working with and I'm not sure whether or not they’d want me to expose who they are as we are working through the bills and the measures. I really believe there are far more legislators who want to be supportive and I think over time we’re beginning to see that because the way we are going forward into 2020, a lot of constituents will be holding legislators accountable to keep them safe.

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Power Up: What measures do you think have the best chance of passing and what do you make of Trump not making good on some of his post-Parkland promises?

McBath: I think background checks for all gun sales is the most basic measure that most people can agree on . . . The reason why I stood up and decided to run for [a] federal seat is because I watch [President] Trump sit at the roundtable on TV, with all of our federal legislators, and he joked and laughed that he didn't need to be afraid of the NRA and within 24 hours, he flipped ... So he has not been accountable to the American public.”

The Investigations

NOT SO FAST: Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort lied to prosecutors working for special counsel Robert Mueller about his "interactions and communications with [Konstantin] Kilimnik," who the FBI alleges has ties to Russian intelligence, a federal judge ruled.

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The judge's decision that Manafort violated his cooperation deal with the special counsel could add years to Manafort's prison sentence and gets directly at "the heart" of Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, reports my colleague Spencer S. Hsu.

“Manafort had denied intentionally lying after his plea deal, but U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District found he lied in three of five areas alleged by prosecutors. She said she would factor in his deception on other topics at sentencing March 13,” Hsu reports.

Key finding: “ The special counsel’s office “has established by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant intentionally made multiple false statements to the FBI, [Mueller’s office] and the grand jury concerning matters that were material to the investigation,” Jackson wrote

More details: “The prosecutors convinced Judge Jackson that Mr. Manafort had deceived them about his talks with Mr. Kilimnik, including their conversations about a possible deal that might have served the Kremlin’s ends. The two men repeatedly discussed a proposal to resolve a conflict over Russia’s incursions into Ukraine, possibly giving Moscow relief from punishing American-led sanctions that had been imposed after Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula,” reports the Times's Shannon LaFraniere.

SHUTDOWN SHOWDOWN UPDATE: Trump's still likely to sign the deal to prevent another shutdown on Saturday. But there's been a few more snags in the slog to finalize legislation before it lands on the president's desk. My colleagues Erica Werner, John Wagner and Mike DeBonis have the details on the last minute micro-fights:

“An ultimately unsuccessful push by Democrats to include back pay for thousands of federal contractors who were caught up in the last shutdown, and — unlike the 800,000 affected federal workers — have not been able to recoup their lost wages." “There was also a dispute over whether to include an extension of the Violence Against Women Act, which expires Friday. Ultimately, negotiators omitted an extension, but Democrats who are working on a stronger stand-alone bill argued there will now be a greater impetus to get it done and said the expiration will have little impact because grants under the law will continue,” per Werner, Wagner and DeBonis.

Two other takeaways from the final bill that you might not yet know about:

An increase: “According to a document outlining some details of the deal, viewed by The Washington Post, the bill will provide $49.4 billion for the Homeland Security Department for the 2019 budget year, an increase of $1.7 billion above 2018 levels. New: “The legislation also includes policy provisions specifying that members of Congress cannot be barred from accessing any facility housing children, and it contains language aimed at making it easier for separated children to reunite with family members in the U.S.”

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