Pelosi opposes gun bill but may allow vote

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she personally opposes a bill loosening the District of Columbia’s gun laws, but that does not mean she will block it from coming to the floor.

“I want to see the particulars,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday. “Then we’ll see what comes to the floor or doesn’t come to the floor.”

{mosads}The bill, designed to head off a showdown between the National Rifle Association and conservative House Democrats, was introduced Thursday, with roughly 50 Democratic co-sponsors, according to congressional sources.

The bill’s lead sponsors are to be three of the Democrats’ most vulnerable members from conservative districts – Reps. Travis Childers (D-Miss.), Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) and Don Cazayoux (D-La.).

The bill, to be numbered H.R. 6691, would repeal the district’s ban on semi-automatic pistols, the requirement that handguns be registered, and allow District residents from traveling to Virginia or Maryland to buy guns. The District currently forbids importing guns, and there are no registered gun dealers with shops in Washington.

Rep. Mark Souder (D-Ind.), who introduced a discharge petition to try to force Democrats to support a similar bill, is also expected to be a co-sponsor.

The deal was negotiated with the powerful gun-rights group by Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.), Mike Ross (D-Ark.) and John Tanner (D-Tenn.).

The details were hammered out Thursday in a meeting between Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and lawmakers backing the bill. Supporters say they have been given a commitment of a vote by mid-September.

Souder’s discharge petition sought to bring a bill by Ross to bring a D.C. gun-rights bill directly to the floor, bypassing the committee where it was languishing.

Supporters are building on a June Supreme Court decision rejecting the District’s decades-old gun law as unconstitutional. They believe District officials, who disliked the ruling, were dragging their feet and failing to fully implement the ruling.

The NRA officials had threatened to use House members’ willingness to sign the discharge petition in its scoring for this year’s election. Conservative Democrats who didn’t sign it, most of them members of the Blue Dog Coalition, risked losing their “A-plus” ratings.

The compromise with the NRA is designed to remove pressure on Democrats to sign the discharge petition, which had 164 signatures as of Wednesday.