Nearly three dozen Senate Democrats proposed banning assault weapons as House-passed gun control measures arrive in the upper chamber.
Sponsor Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is joined by Rep. David Cicilline in the House, said the Assault Weapons Ban of 2021 is instrumental in preventing mass shootings in a joint press release on Thursday.
“It’s been 17 years since the original Assault Weapons Ban expired, and the plague of gun violence continues to grow in this country,” Feinstein said. “To be clear, this bill saves lives. … We’re now seeing a rise in domestic terrorism, and military-style assault weapons are increasingly becoming the guns of choice for these dangerous groups. I’m hopeful that with the new administration and Democratic control of the Senate, we can finally pass commonsense gun reforms to remove these deadly weapons from our communities.”
CONGRESS TRIES TO EXPAND GUN CONTROL FOR THE FIRST TIME IN DECADES
Cicilline, who said assault weapons’ sole purposes are to “kill as many people as possible in as short an amount of time as possible,” argued that “banning these weapons will make our cities and towns safer and more secure and help to reduce gun deaths.”
In addition to Feinstein, 34 Democrats co-sponsored the legislation, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
A pair of gun control measures passed in the Democratic-controlled House on Thursday. H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021, which expands background checks to guns purchased over the internet, passed in a 227-203 vote. Later that day, H.R. 1446, a measure granting authorities 10 business days to complete federal background checks prior to licensure of a gun sale known as the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021, passed 219-210.
Schumer has vowed to put both measures to a vote in the Senate.
Republicans, the vast majority of whom voted against both proposals, have largely opposed the gun control efforts. Reps. Lauren Boebert and Kat Cammack wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Examiner that the legislation violates citizens’ constitutional rights.
“The so-called ‘Bipartisan Background Checks Act’ would effectively create a national firearm registry, allowing the government to target gun owners,” they wrote. “This bill, if it ever became law, would criminalize common exchanges of firearms. … This bill would strip away the rights of millions of people while doing nothing at all to reduce gun violence. … All this bill will really do is advance the Left’s agenda to criminalize gun ownership, increase burdensome regulations, establish a gun registry, and set the stage for gun seizures.”
The pair of lawmakers denounced the Enhanced Background Checks Act, saying it would “subject Second Amendment rights to FBI bureaucratic inertia” and “have no effect on gun crime.”
Rep. Burgess Owens, a Utah Republican, said he received “over 1,000 emails from constituents in strong opposition to these anti-gun bills.”
If the Senate passes the gun control measures, President Biden appears poised to sign them into law.
“The Administration looks forward to working with Congress to strengthen the Federal gun background check system and take other commonsense steps to reduce gun violence,” the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement prior to the House votes. “The Administration encourages the House to pass two bills that would help close existing loopholes in the system.”
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The House bills would require 60 votes to be adopted in the Senate, meaning 10 Republicans would need to join all Democrats for the measures to pass.
