US one step closer to banning semi-automatic weapons after major vote
The House passed legislation Friday that would ban assault weapons for the first time since 2004, in a sign that Democrats intend to pursue more aggressive gun violence prevention measures after a spate of mass shootings.
The bill passed in a largely party-line vote of 217-213, with ii Republicans voting for the measure and five Democrats opposing it.
The level of GOP opposition indicates the bill is unlikely to advance in the evenly carve up Senate, where it would require the support of at least ten Republicans to defeat a guaranteed filibuster. It'due south also not clear if the measure has the support of all 50 Senate Democrats.
The legislation, authored by Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., would criminalize the knowing sale, manufacture, transfer, possession or importation of many types of semi-automatic weapons and large-chapters armament feeding devices.
President Joe Biden praised Business firm Democrats for passing the neb and urged the Senate to follow suit.
"When guns are the number one killer of children in America, when more children die from guns than agile-duty police force and active-duty military combined, nosotros take to deed," he said in a argument. "Today, House Democrats acted past unifying to pass an assault weapons ban to keep weapons of war off our streets, save lives in this country, and reduce law-breaking in our communities."
He added that the Senate should "move speedily to go this bill to my desk, and I will not stop fighting until information technology does."
During floor fence before Friday'due south vote, Business firm Democrats argued an attack weapons ban was needed because of the number of contempo shootings where gunmen accept used assail-style weapons.
"Our nation has watched in unspeakable horror as assault weapons have been used in massacre later on massacre in communities beyond the country," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. "We know that an assault weapons ban tin work because information technology has worked before."
Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the chairman of the Business firm Judiciary Commission asked: "How many more than mass shootings must we endure? When will we learn?"
The Judiciary Committee avant-garde the measure out last week on a party-line vote of 25 to 18.
House Republicans on Fri insisted the legislation was unconstitutional and that Democrats want to confiscate firearms.
"Today, they're coming for your guns," Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the peak Republican on the Judiciary Commission. "They want to take all guns from all people."
This nib "will make communities, I call back, less safe," he added.
The assault weapons ban would not utilize to some types of firearms, including antiques, rifles and shotguns explicitly identified past make and model, and guns that are manually operated in a variety of ways.
Former President Pecker Clinton signed into constabulary a 10-year assault weapons ban in 1994. It expired in 2004. Several studies, including 1 published in 2019 in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, take shown that mass shooting deaths were reduced during the years the ban was in consequence.
Senate Republicans have not been open up to any additional gun measures afterward passing bipartisan legislation last month aimed at enhancing background checks to include juvenile records and providing grants to states to enact "red flag" laws.
The five House Democrats who voted against the assault weapons ban were Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Kurt Schrader of Oregon, Jared Gilt of Maine and Ron Kind of Wisconsin.
The 2 Republicans who crossed the aisle to support the bill were Reps. Chris Jacobs of New York and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. Jacobs' district includes Buffalo, where a white gunman has been charged with killing 10 Black people in a racist mass shooting at a supermarket in May.
In a brief interview with NBC News after the vote, Jacobs said that while he doesn't expect the Senate to pass the neb, he hopes information technology "begins the dialogue towards something."
"I'm not being unrealistic that this is going to pass. The Senate doesn't seem inclined at this indicate in time to do it," he said.
The crusade of tougher gun laws has gained traction in Congress and in U.S. public stance surveys after the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas. The push for gun limits also represents a desire for Democrats to turn the tables on the GOP on the issue of criminal offense heading into the November midterm elections.
The Firm had planned to vote on the assault weapons ban before this week alongside legislation to provide funding for local police departments. But members of the Congressional Black Conclave and other progressives balked at the latter measures, calling for more accountability measures in substitution for funding. They struck a deal to move forward solely on the assail weapons ban Fri.
Pelosi said the House would proceed to work on the police funding legislation for hereafter consideration.
Rep. Joyce Beatty, who chairs the Congressional Blackness Conclave, told reporters she was proud of the CBC's leadership in striking Friday'south deal and grateful to Pelosi for listening to their concerns. She described the set on weapons vote as "step one" in addressing violence and policing.
"We have people from Uvalde and Parkland who are here today with those children, request us to make sure that we do an assail ban. ... At present, are we done? No, we're non done. We will come back and we volition wait at the guardrails that we're putting in," she said, referring to the 2018 mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Fri'southward vote comes days later the Business firm Oversight Commission held a contentious hearing in which Democrats pressed gun manufacturers to take responsibility for their role in the gun violence epidemic and took a expect at what they termed "agonizing sales tactics" to become young men to buy assault weapons.
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-will-vote-ban-assault-weapons-friday-rcna40644
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