H.R. 1808 Assault Weapons Ban of 2021 and H.R. 2814 Repeal of PLCAA did not make it out of the rules committee. This means that any votes on the two bills will not come before the house gets back from its August vacation.

There is a boatload of politics involved with getting bills to a vote. That is by definition what this is all about.

In short, a bill is introduced to the House or the Senate. From there it is normally referred to a committee where it will be discussed and amended/modified. Once it is voted out of committee it could be sent back to a different committee where the same thing happens.

This goes on until the bill has made it out of all committees. At this point it needs to be scheduled for debate on the floor.

Under the house rules H.R. 1808 and H.R. 2814 were not eligible for debate. Because of this the bills were sent to the rules committee.

In the House rules can be modified by the Rules Committee at any time. This is a huge difference from the Senate where it is much harder to modify the rules.

The Rules committee can change the House Rules to allow particular bills to reach the floor for debate.

Assuming the Democrats had the votes in the House to pass the bill you would assume that the Rules Committee would make the change and it would go to the floor. If they don’t have the votes and the bills went to the floor and were voted down, the bills would be dead. New bills would have to be introduced and make their way through committee(s) to get a new vote.

By delaying the vote the Democrats give themselves more time to find more votes. This also allows them to spend the next few weeks campaigning with “We got an AWB out of committee! First time in decades! Look! Look! We’re doing something about gun violence.”

Keep up the pressure on your representatives.

Go to Find Your Representative enter your zip code and you will get the contact information for your Representative. Call them.

Updated to add links:

FPC Take Action Page: FPCAction.org – FPC Grassroots Army: Take Action!
GOA site: Gun Owners of America
Missouri Firearms Coalition: Take Action Today!