BREAKING NEWS

US House blocks effort to force vote on gun legislation

WASHINGTON- The Republican-run US House of Representatives on Thursday blocked a Democratic effort to consider bipartisan gun control legislation in the wake of repeated, highly publicized mass shootings in the United States.
Voting along party lines by 242 to 173, the House blocked the effort by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to bring to the floor a bill that would allow the government to ban suspected terrorists from legally purchasing guns.
"It is shocking to the American people that Congress refuses to keep guns out of the hands of those on the FBI's terrorist watch list," Pelosi said, arguing for consideration of the bill by Representative Peter King, a Republican, and co-sponsored by many Democrats.
Pelosi, a California Democrat, said it was a "disgrace" that Congress had not taken any action since the shooting deaths of 20 children in a Connecticut school three years ago. But her motion was ruled out of order and the House voted to table her appeal, blocking her effort.
Following recent mass shootings in California, where a married couple killed 14 people, and Colorado, where a man shot three people to death in a Planned Parenthood clinic, Democrats say public sentiment is turning in their favor on gun control.