Photo by Samer Farha

Is there a parliamentary term for beating a dead horse? Because if there is, the Senate appears to be doing just that.

Just a week after an amendment designed to gut the District’s gun laws effectively sunk legislation that would have granted the city a voting seat in the U.S. House, two senators are planning to go ahead and introduce stand-alone legislation doing away with many of the District’s existing gun regulations.

According to a press release sent out by Council member Michael Brown (I-At Large) this afternoon, the legislation, soon to be introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), will “weaken D.C.’s gun laws by allowing semi-automatic weapons, repeal storage requirements, and change our current registration requirements.” Tester’s office confirmed to us that the legislation would be introduced later this afternoon, but declined to specify what exactly it would mandate.

Trying to overturn the District’s gun laws by congressional fiat has become something of a no-lose annual proposition for many members of Congress looking to bone up their rankings with the NRA. Just last February, Sen. Jon Ensign (R-Nev.) introduced and the Senate approved a gun-law gutting amendment to the D.C. voting rights legislation, which eventually stalled in the House. Over the past few years, legislators ranging from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) to Rep. Travis Childers (D-Miss.) have tried to overturn the District’s gun laws and prohibit the D.C. Council from enacting new ones, to no avail.

Even after the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller ruling, gun rights advocates claim that the District’s updated gun regulations are so cumbersome that they effectively serve as a de facto ban. (A federal judge recently ruled differently, though.) Proponents of the restrictions claim that the District needs strict gun laws, and that the Heller ruling was vague enough as to allow registration requirements, ballistic tests and other elements of the city’s gun regulations.

We’ll update once we get details of the legislation.

MORE: WTOP reports the bill would “repeal the District’s ban on semi-automatic weapons and remove the requirement that guns be kept unloaded and disassembled when stored in the home or office. It would also authorize District residents to buy guns and ammunition in Maryland and Virginia, and it would repeal registration requirements.”