House Democrats aim to pass gun control legislation by early June

House Democrats will try to advance a raft of gun-control bills on Thursday in the wake of two high-profile mass shootings that rocked the nation earlier this month.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., has called lawmakers back from a break to mark up gun legislation that combines eight separate bills. He aims to bring a suite of new gun-safety laws to the House floor “as soon as possible,” a spokesman said, in light of the two gruesome mass shootings.

The more-recent and deadlier attack occurred on Tuesday, when an 18-year-old gunman shot 19 children and two teachers to death at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. That massacre came just 10 days after another teenager killed 10 shoppers at a supermarket in a racist rampage in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York.

The Democratic-led package will likely fail in the face of Republican opposition in the Senate. However, Democrats have acknowledged a hope — however slim — that bipartisan talks in the Senate can lead to lawmakers passing a more limited bill with support from both parties.