The House Judiciary Committee advanced a pair of bills Wednesday that would expand federal background checks for firearm purchases, in what would be the first new gun control legislation in years. Democrats voted 23 to 15 along party lines in favor of the bills—among them, Georgia freshman Congressmember Lucy McBath, whose 17-year-old son Jordan Davis was shot dead in 2012 at a Florida gas station.

Rep. Lucy McBath: “The two bills that sit before us today will ensure mothers and fathers have one less reason to worry about when they send their children off to school. They’ll give students one less thing to fear when they walk into their schools. And most importantly, it will make our communities and our nation a safer place. I talk to victims. I have been working with victims for the last six years, and I refuse to talk to one more parent that is scared every single day when they send their children off to school.”

The legislation will head to a vote in the full House of Representatives, but Republican leaders have said it will be dead on arrival in the Senate. The bills advanced just ahead of the first anniversary of the Valentine’s Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, when a former student armed with a semiautomatic rifle gunned down 17 students, staff and teachers in just three minutes. Since then, guns have claimed the lives of nearly 1,200 U.S. students. We’ll have more on today’s anniversary of the Parkland massacre later in the broadcast.