The House will vote Friday on a bill to ban assault-style weapons in response to a string of recent mass shootings this year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Friday. The move comes after Democrats failed to secure the necessary votes to pass more broad public safety measures Friday. The negotiations on those bills are expected to continue into the summer.
The vote on the ban will mark the first effort by lawmakers to attempt to reinstate the federal ban, which was law from 1994 until 2004. But the proposal is unlikely to reach President Joe Biden’s desk.
Pelosi told reporters at the Capitol Friday that “I’m excited today because for a long time now I have wanted to reinstate the assault weapon ban.”
“If you weren’t here or maybe not even born when we did this in the ’90s, it was hard, but it happened, and it saved lives,” Pelosi said. “And I’m looking forward to the passage of it this afternoon.”
Pelosi said her remarks would include “a presentation of what some totally irresponsible people are putting out there about little children, toddlers learning how to use an assault weapon — smaller assault weapons, but a gun like mommy and daddy, getting their muscles to be able to use it.”
There is an “outcry” to reinstate the ban in the country, Pelosi argued.
A Quinnipiac University Poll last month following the shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, found most people, 57% to 38%, favor stricter gun laws in the United States. However, when polled on specific policies, majorities said they support requiring background checks for all gun buyers or the implementation of “red flag” laws.
But people were more split on a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons, with 50% in support and 45% opposed. Though a slim majority, Quinnipiac said it marked “the lowest level of support among registered voters for a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons since February 2013.”
A similar ban passed the Senate in 1993 and was signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton in 1994. But the law included a provision allowing it to expire after 10 years, and it automatically expired in 2004 when it was not renewed by a Republican-majority Congress during former President George W. Bush’s administration.
In a “Dear Colleague” letter Friday, Pelosi said Democrats have made “immense progress in our discussions” on the public safety measures and still plan to bring those bills to the floor.
“Today, our Democratic Majority will take up and pass the Assault Weapons Ban legislation: a crucial step in our ongoing fight against the deadly epidemic of gun violence in our nation,” Pelosi wrote.
Pelosi added that in order to do so, Democrats must first “pass same-day authority so that we can pass the Rule enabling us to bring up the Assault Weapons Ban,” and she urged her members to vote yes on each step.
The bill is expected to pass in the House, but it faces grim prospects in the Senate, where it is unlikely to receive the necessary 60 votes to clear the upper chamber’s filibuster threshold.
The Biden administration supports the assault-style weapons ban, the White House said Friday.
