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Senate Democrats want the chamber's health committee to hold a hearing on the causes and remedies of mass shootings, including school shootings. Nine Democrats, as well as Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), sent a letter last week to Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top members on the panel, requesting they schedule a hearing in the wake of the Parkland, Fla., shooting, in which 17 people were killed.  (Carney, 3/26)

Doctors and health-care professionals are criticizing former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) after he suggested Sunday that student activists should learn CPR instead of protesting for gun control. The day after thousands of students across the country took to the streets to protest gun violence during the March for Our Lives, Santorum made remarks about CPR while appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union.” (Gstalter, 3/26)

New Jersey's Democrat-led Assembly on Monday passed a half-dozen bills aimed at strengthening the state's already-strict gun laws, including a measure to permit the seizure of weapons upon a court order. The legislation comes just days after tens of thousands of students marched across the country to call for tightening gun laws and the same day as Second Amendment advocates in Trenton rallied against the legislation. (Catalini, 3/26)

One bill would require law-enforcement officials to seize weapons from someone considered a threat by a mental-health professional and another piece of legislation would establish a so-called “red-flag law” that would allow family members or others to ask a court to temporarily bar people deemed a risk from possessing or purchasing guns. “This isn’t about punitive. This is about being protective,” said New Jersey Assemblyman John McKeon, a Democrat, during the vote’s proceedings. (de Avila, 3/26)

Missouri lawmakers passed a law in 2014 that creates a framework for how school districts can arm their employees to protect against school shootings by becoming “school protection officers.” ... Instead the handful of rural Missouri schools that have armed some of their staff members have contracted with a private security firm to train their employees. (Delaney, 3/27)