Leahy wants the committee to mark up legislation next month. | POLITICO Screen grab Panel could consider gun bill in Feb.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will have a new gun control bill ready to go by the end of February, but don’t look for an assault weapons ban just yet.

Following an at times emotionally charged hearing on Wednesday that included an appearance by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said he plans to complete work on a bill by the end of next month.


( PHOTOS: Best lines from the gun violence hearing)

That means the Senate could be fighting it out on the floor over gun control, including a potential showdown over assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips, by early to mid-March. The powerful National Rifle Association and pro-gun rights lawmakers have vowed to block an assault weapons ban, and the 4.5-million-member organization doesn’t appear open to other gun-related legislation either.

“Despite our differences on many issues, I believe there should be areas of agreement,” Leahy said. “I want the committee to mark up legislation next month.”

Both Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who is pushing strongly for the assault weapons ban, and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) want to hold subcommittee hearings during the next few weeks. Leahy won’t mark up a bill in the full committee until those two sessions take place.

And sources close to Leahy indicate that Feinstein’s assault weapon ban likely won’t be the base bill that comes out of the Judiciary Committee.

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Instead, Feinstein will be allowed to offer the ban as an amendment on the Senate floor when the gun control bill is taken up. Feinstein has already publicly declared that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has promised she would be allowed to do so.

Leahy’s base bill is expected to include a proposal for “universal background checks” on all gun sales, including those at gun shows or private transactions; a gun trafficking measure to prevent “straw purchasers” from buying guns on behalf of those who cannot pass a background check; possible provisions on mental-health screening or calling for broader enforcement of current federal gun laws.

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And even if the Senate passes a bill, there is no guarantee that the House, controlled by Republicans, would approve any gun legislation at all.

Giffords, who was injured in a mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz., in January 2011 and rarely makes public appearances since retiring from the House last year, began Wednesday’s hearing by making a wrenching emotional appeal for congressional action, a call made all the more powerful since the Dec. 14 shooting in Newtown, Conn., that left 26 people dead, including 20 children.

“Be bold. Be courageous. Americans are counting on you,” Giffords demanded.

In a slow, sometimes halting delivery, Giffords said the the Congress must act now or face the prospect of more mass shootings. Her point was further driven home when her husband, Mark Kelly, informed committee members that there had been another shooting in Phoenix as the panel was meeting.

“Violence is a big problem,” Giffords added. “Too many children are dying. Too many children.”

Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s combative CEO, and GOP senators opposed to gun control refused to yield any ground in the debate. The NRA has long opposed Feinstein’s assault weapon ban, and LaPierre even came out against measures that have broad public support, such as universal background checks.

At one point, LaPierre criticized the Senate hearing as essentially useless, lashing out repeatedly at what he termed the “lies” and “falsehoods” being offered by gun control advocates.

“We’ve got to get in the real world with this discussion,” LaPierre said. “This discussion, I sit here and listen to it, and my reaction is how little it has to do with the problem of keeping our kids safe and how much it has to do with the decade-long, two decade-long, gun ban agenda when we don’t even enforce the laws on the books.”

LaPierre added that “people all over the country fear they will be abandoned by our government” during a natural disaster or civil strife and need to be able to defend themselves. He later denounced a proposed assault weapons ban as “based on falsehoods by people who don’t understand firearms.”

As for universal background checks, LaPierre dismissed the proposal as requiring a “huge, massive bureaucracy” and unworkable.

As the hearing unfolded, the senators and witnesses largely repeated their own oft-stated positions, with little new ground or progress made. But it demonstrated in the starkest possible manner how difficult it will be for Congress to pass any gun legislation.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, warned that the Newtown shooting “should not be used to put forth every gun control measure that’s been around for years.”

And Grassley used the session to slam President Barack Obama over his calls for more gun controls, including the president’s use of executive orders to implement some changes to federal gun regulations.

“President Obama has turned the Constitution on its head,” Grassley asserted.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a tea party favorite just elected in November, cautioned that “emotion leads to bad policy.” For Cruz, “considerations of this body often take place in a fact-free zone.”

Gun-control supporters, however, refused to back down. With police chiefs all over the nation supporting their position, Feinstein, Leahy, Durbin and the panel’s Democrats made clear the Senate will take some action on the controversial issue.

Kelly, Giffords’s husband and a former astronaut, repeatedly pressed for expanded background checks, while trying to fend off questions about the effectiveness of an assault weapons ban.

After his wife made her brief statement and painfully walked out of the room, Kelly told the panel that he and Giffords are “both gun owners and take that right and the responsibilities that come with it very seriously.”

“We are simply two reasonable Americans who realize we have a problem with gun violence, and we need Congress to act,” Kelly said. “Gabby and I are pro-gun ownership. We are anti-gun violence.”

Kelly added: “My wife would not have been sitting here if we had better background checks.”

While LaPierre and the NRA have called for armed security at the nation’s schools — and other pro-gun groups have urged arming teachers — Feinstein said this position is impractical.

“We can’t have a totally armed society,” said Feinstein, admitting the whole topic is a difficult one “because people have such fixed positions.”

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who supports the assault weapons ban, said failure to include a prohibition on assault weapons or other restrictions on guns as part of any new legislation is nonsensical.

“Not including guns when discussing mass killings is like not including cigarettes we’re talking about lung cancer,” Schumer said.

For his part, Leahy’s views are similar to those of other Democrats from pro-gun states in the West and Midwest, some of whom face reelection in 2014.

Democratic leadership wants to see the bill include universal background checks at a minimum. That would allow Feinstein and other pro-gun control Democrats to offer amendments to expand the legislation, including an assault weapons ban. Democrats up for reelection in red states could then go on record opposing the assault weapons ban, if they so chose, while still supporting the background checks measure.

Reid has already stated that he will not move a bill through the Senate that cannot get House support. And House support for an assault weapons ban is very unlikely.