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Orlando gay nightclub shooting

House passes bills to combat radicalization of Americans by terrorists

Erin Kelly
USA TODAY
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

WASHINGTON — Reacting to the mass shooting in Orlando, the House on Thursday approved a package of three previously passed bills aimed at preventing terrorists from radicalizing Americans to attack inside the United States.

House Republicans said the bipartisan legislation will help prevent foreign terrorists from using propaganda to lure Americans into committing the kind of violent acts that gunman Omar Mateen carried out in Orlando on Sunday when he shot 49 people to death and wounded more than 50 others in an attack on patrons of a gay nightclub.

Democrats said the recycled bills offer nothing new in response to the Orlando attack. They urged GOP leaders to allow a vote on gun control measures.

House members voted 402-15 to approve the Countering Terrorism Radicalization Act. Republican leaders hope that approving the merged bills will spur the Senate to act.

The bill would provide training by the Department of Homeland Security to local and state officials on how to more quickly identify suspicious activity and terrorism threats. The bill also directs DHS to create a multi-agency Counterterrorism Advisory Board to coordinate anti-terror programs across the U.S. Government, and to use the testimony of disillusioned former jihadists to counter terrorist recruitment efforts.

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Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, said Thursday that a vote on the package has not yet been scheduled in the Senate. He said leaders are reviewing the legislation and consulting with the relevant committees.

Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, called the massacre in Orlando "a terrorist attack." Orlando gunman Oman Mateen, who was a U.S. citizen, is believed by authorities to have been a self-radicalized "lone wolf" who was influenced by Islamic State propaganda. He declared his allegiance to the Islamic State in a 911 phone call.

"We're a nation at war, and our own city streets have become the front lines," said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who led the effort to pass the bill as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "We will not sit on the sidelines while terrorists try to brainwash Americans."

But Democrats said the package of bills passed Thursday won't solve the problem.

"Although there is little to object to in (the legislation), particularly since it largely codifies what the Department of Homeland Security is already doing, it is important to state — on the record — that it offers nothing new to respond to the Orlando attack," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, R-Miss., the senior Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., urged Republicans to allow a vote on legislation that would prevent people from buying guns if they are on "no fly" lists because of suspected terrorist ties. She also called for a vote on a bill to expand background checks on gun buyers.

"We have said: we are Orlando. But what are we? We are doing nothing," Pelosi said. "It would be the equivalent of somebody who is very sick and the doctor says, 'I'm going to give you a get well card, but I'm not going to give you any antidote to the pain, to the problem that you have.' And this is what we have become: words, not deeds; words, not action."

Republican Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said Democrats were trying to "take advantage" or the Orlando shootings to push their gun control agenda.

"This package of bills puts the focus where it needs to be...rooting out the attacks that are here on the home front," Scalise said.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., in a news conference Thursday, said he and other Republicans are concerned that the so-called "no fly, no buy" legislation could unfairly prevent innocent Americans from buying firearms without due process protections when they have been wrongly placed on the "no fly" list.

"We don't take away a citizen's rights without that due process," Ryan told reporters.

House leaders will push package of previously passed terrorism measures

Senate Republicans plot path forward on guns after Democrats stage 'filibuster'

 

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