Scoop: Pistol-packing freshmen prompt Congress gun review

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Several incoming House freshmen have inquired about carrying guns into the Capitol, leading a board overseeing congressional security to rethink a regulation banning members from packing heat under the dome, a House aide with direct knowledge of the board review told Axios.

Why it matters: Some Democratic members say expanded gun carrying on Capitol Hill would be a "provocation" in light of the current political climate. Some Republicans consider it an expression of a citizen's Second Amendment rights.

The matter will be reviewed by the Capitol Police Board, which consists of the sergeant-at-arms of the House, the sergeant-at-arms and doorkeeper of the Senate, and the Architect of the Capitol, said the House aide. The chief of the Capitol Police also serves on the board.

  • “The Architect of the Capitol and the Senate sergeant-at-arms are gonna do whatever [Mitch] McConnell wants," another aide to a top Democratic lawmaker told Axios.
The backstory: The District of Columbia has some of the nation's strictest gun laws but the Capitol complex is exempt since it's on federal land. That allows lawmakers to set their own rules.

  • Members can carry guns into the House and Senate office buildings surrounding the Capitol building.
  • There's a ban on carrying them into the House and Senate chambers, the Speaker's Lobby just off the House floor, as well as other rooms around either chamber, according to a Capitol Police Board document from 1967.
  • That said, there's no way to tell if a member violates the rules because they're allowed to walk around metal detectors when they enter the Capitol. It's also an open question about whether they can legally carry guns in the Rotunda and other public areas of the building.
  • Congress recently spent $600 million on a new Capitol Visitors Center, in part to expand the public security perimeter around the House and Senate chambers after a gunman rushed into the building in 1998 and killed two police officers.
  • Members can bypass all that with their own entrances and wave-through privileges.
 
Democrats are all about exercising un-enumerated rights, and exercising enumerated rights only if you do so sensibly...
 
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