Several housing authorities in large cities had imposed prohibitions on the possession of guns. Rep. Price (R-GA) wanted to offer an amendment to the bill providing fiscal year 2010 funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development that would have overturned those prohibitions. The chair ruled his effort to offer the amendment was out of order. He appealed that ruling to the House. This was a vote on a motion to table (kill) the appeal by Price of the ruling of the chair

Rep. Price (R-GA) originally claimed that he should have been permitted to offer his amendment as a “matter of privilege”. The decision of the chair that he had appealed did not permit Price to offer his amendment because House procedures do not permit a “matter of privilege” to be raised as a way to force a vote on an amendment.

Rep. Price was permitted to argue in support of his claim that his ability to offer the amendment was a “matter of privilege”. He said Members may raise questions in privileged resolutions regarding their rights, and nothing “is more fundamental to the rights of the Members of this House than the ability to represent their constituents and to affect the legislation that's brought to the floor.” Price also claimed: “(T)he Democratic majority . . . has unilaterally--some would say brazenly, some would say repressively--ended a 220-year tradition of allowing any Member to (offer an amendment to) a spending bill.”

Price added: “(W)hen my constituents sent me here to Congress . . . they sent me here . . . to exercise every single ability that a Member of the House is granted . . . If Members are not allowed to offer amendments, then the Member, him or herself, is unable to represent their constituents and consequently is disenfranchising every single American.”

The appeal was killed on a vote of 238-182. Two hundred and thirty-seven Democrats and one Republican voted “aye”. One hundred seven-one Republicans and eleven Democrats voted “nay”. As a result, the House effectively decided not to allow the offering of an amendment to overturn the prohibitions on guns in public housing projects.