News - October 3, 2024 - by Ray Hagar

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Nevada's 1st U.S. House District Rep. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, will never forget that the largest mass shooting in U.S. history occurred in her congressional district -- right on The Las Vegas Strip.

Oct. 1, 2017: A gunman inside the Mandalay Bay tower used a "bump stock" device and fired on the crowd at the Route 91 Harvest Country Music Festival. Sixty people died. More than 850 were injured.

The Trump Administration then banned the bump stocks, saying they illegally transformed a legal weapon into a machine gun. However, last June, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that ruling. And bump stocks, now a dreaded term for many Nevadans, are legal again.

Titus, however, said recently on Nevada Newsmakers she is determined to get them banned again -- this time by legislation passed in Congress.

"Well, I've got the bill to do away with the bump stocks, and I have a discharge petition where a number of people have signed it to say, 'Bring that bill to the floor, because if you brought it to the floor, I think it would pass,'" she told host Sam Shad. "So we're not giving up -- as a big priority in The Gun Safety Caucus -- to try to get that passed."

Titus is a member of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, which was created in the wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. It "works to find commonsense solutions to the ongoing gun violence epidemic," according to published definitions of its purpose.

Titus is somewhat optimistic the bump-stock ban could get approval in the U.S. House, despite GOP opposition and the powerful gun lobby.

When asked it it could pass the U.S. House, Titus said:

"Well, I hope so. There have been a few Republicans who will sign on. Some who are not running again. Some who are brave enough to stand up to the NRA (National Rifle Association)."

"So, you know, look how many shootings we have all the time," Titus continued. "Just recently, we had one every day, practically. So, you know, people are getting tired of just thoughts and prayers."

There were 656 mass shootings in the 365 days of 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization that tracks gun violence in the United States. The GVA defines a mass shooting as an incident where at least four people are killed, not including the shooter.

They (the public) want some action," Titus said. "And I think that public sentiment is building that will help us to get this through. Nevada did it in the Legislature and some other states have done it, too. But we need to do it federally."

NO TAX ON TIPS: Many of the voters in Titus' CD1 work in casinos on or near The Las Vegas Strip. Recently, former President Trump called for "no tax on tips" during a campaign stop in Las Vegas.

"Well, when Trump came to town, he saw it as an opportunity to try to peel off some of the Culinary Union," Titus said. "So I think he just threw it out there, pandering.

"I would support 'No Tax on Tips' only if it's accompanied by raising the minimum wage, because there are a lot of people who work in the service industry who don't get tips, or if you work at the low end, you get small tips. That's not enough," she said.

"So you can look at 'No Tax on Tips' but make it fair and look at it in the big picture, so it's not just a throw-away political line," she said.

HOME ACT: Titus is joining Nevada's 4th U.S. House District Rep. Steven Horsford, D-North Las Vegas, and 3rd U.S. House District Rep. Susie Lee, D-Las Vegas in supporting the HOME Act, which is designed to stop or slow the massive purchases of houses in the Las Vegas Valley by corporate hedge funds. Those corporations then raise purchase and rental prices, which can force middle-class families and seniors out the the market, Titus said.

"In this case, capitalism needs some governmental controls, Titus said.

"You shouldn't just run rampant at the expense of working people," she said. "Fifteen percent of the houses in my district are owned by corporations. I get a letter once a week saying,'We want to buy your house.' But what they do is they buy the house at a low price and then either flip it at a higher price or rent it at a higher price.

"That takes it out of the market for new families, for seniors who want to retire and downsize, for people who are just kind of on the pathway to more affluence," Titus said. "So I think you can still put some caps on what those corporations do."

Shad suggested more land for housing could be obtained by passing congressional lands bills to move federal land to local developers -- who then could build more housing for citizens.

"Well, it might be one of the solutions, but it's not the silver bullet," Titus said, the former Senate Minority Leader at the Legislature who was first elected to Congress in 2009.

"Now, there's been lands bills since I've been here, and they always get caught up in politics; sometimes north and south, sometimes environmentalist versus developers. So it's not as easy as just getting a lands bill," she said.

"Besides, if you get a lands bill and you just leave it to developers -- yeah, they'll develop houses, but they'll want them up on the hill at the high prices for the (pro) football players.

"They don't want to build down in the valley where it's affordable for everyday working families," she said.

Even if Congress approves lands bills, the transfer process can be painfully slow, Titus said.

"I know that the BLM (U.S. Bureau of Land Management) is very slow and has been in everything they do," Titus said. "They are very frustrating when it comes to taking care of our wild horses or releasing land for development or even making improvements to water projects. So with the BLM, you just really have to keep after them to get them to do that."

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