Violence Against Women Act: House approves bill to expand gun restrictions and transgender rights in spite of NRA threats

The House has voted to reauthorise the Violence Against Women Act, bucking a concerted effort by the National Rifle Association to stop the bill over a provision that would keep guns out of the hands of convicted domestic abusers.

The move comes nearly two months after the 1994 law that protects victims of domestic and sexual violence was allowed to expire, overlooked amid a scramble in Washington to approve a budget after Donald Trump buckled on his demands for billions to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.

The newest version of the VAWA includes an expansion on transgender rights, and the gun provision that would lower the threshold to keep romantic partners from buying guns. The new law would bar individuals from buying guns if they have been convicted on misdemeanour domestic abuse or stalking charge — the current law only applies to felonies.

As the House began to consider the newest reauthorisation, those two Democrat-introduced provisions illustrated a rift in Washington, and prompted a major lobbying effort by the NRA to stop the bill from going forward.

Describing the bill as Democrats “intentionally politicising the Violence Against Women Act as a smokescreen to push their gun control agenda”, the NRA urged members of Congress to vote no on the reauthorisation, and notified politicians that the pro-gun group would be “scoring” how they vote in the issue for future endorsements and ratings in elections.

The NRA did not respond to a request for comment, but has previously said that it supports other provisions in the VAWA reauthorisation outside of the gun control measures.

When the House voted on Thursday, 33 Republicans joined 230 Democrats to approve the legislation. Just one Republican member had co-sponsored the bill before the vote, Representative Brian Fitzpatrick.

“I think we need to speak to everyone, including women, and talk about the issues they care about and take reasonable, pragmatic positions, and this is one of them,” Mr Fitzpatrick told NPR before the vote.

Just before the vote, Democratic representative Debbie Dingell said: This “is landmark legislation that responds to our nation’s crisis of domestic violence. We must fund programmes that provide compassionate care and support for women, families, and – yes – men too. This will save lives.”

The move means the bill will now go before the Senate for approval, where senators Joni Ernst and Dianne Feinstein are working on their own version of the VAWA.

Former representative Gabby Giffords — who was shot in the head during a campaign event in Tucson, Arizona in 2011 — cheered the passage of the VAWA reauthorisation.

Ms Giffords, who started the Giffords Law Centre after leaving Congress, painted the issue in stark terms, noting that a woman is shot to death by an intimate partner every 16 hours in the US.

“As a nation, we must do everything in our power to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous domestic abusers and convicted stalkers. For the millions of women and families affected by domestic violence, abusers with guns pose a terrifying threat that far too often ends in tragedy,” she said.

She continued: “In fact, the presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation makes it five times more likely that a woman will die. The new majority in Congress understands this horrifying reality needs to change and is once again leading with action. Today’s victory in the House is a significant step towards protecting women and their families and saving lives from gun violence.”

Other provisions objected to by Republicans included opposition to a part of the bill that allows US citizens to be tried in tribal courts for domestic abuse crimes, and for violence committed on native lands. Republicans also attempted to strip the bill of a provision that would allow transgender women to gain access to shelters, and to force them to serve in prisons aligning with the sex they were assigned at birth — even if that is not the sex they identify with now.

Those efforts to strip those protections were denied along party lines.