"We shouldn't be banning guns for law-abiding citizens. We should be focusing on making sure that citizens who should not get guns in the first place don't get those guns," Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said.
At his weekly press conference, Ryan said House Republicans are going to focus on system failures instead of new gun control laws following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
"In this particular case, there were a lot of breakdowns from local law enforcement to the FBI getting tips that they didn't follow up on to you know school resource officers who are trained to protect kids in these schools and who didn't do that and that to me is probably the most stunning one of them all," Ryan said.
Congress has been under pressure to pass a measure on gun control after the school shooting, which left 17 people dead.
Ryan specifically touted the Fix NICS bill, which was passed by the House in December. The bill proposes changes to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. It aims to make state and federal agencies more thorough when it comes to reporting people who are supposed to be banned from buying guns.
But the House bill is attached to a measure that would allow people with concealed carry permits to carry across state lines.
Republicans had hoped for a quick passage of the Fix NICS bill in the Senate, but that seems unlikely. Senators on both sides of the aisle are concerned the bill doesn't do enough to fix the background check system. And Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who co-wrote the bill, wants to vote on it as a stand-alone measure.
Ryan said the House won't talk gun control until he sees what the Senate can do first.
Additional reporting from Newsy affiliate CNN.
