California Senator plans to reintroduce assault weapons ban
Dianne Feinstein, Democratic Senator of California and chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, stated her intentions of renewing the expired assault weapons ban. These words came just two days after 26 people, including 20 children, were massacred at an elementary school in Newton, Connecticut. The killer reportedly had an assault rifle in his arsenal. “I have every sense that it’s an uphill road.” said Feinstein, “It was in the past when we did it in the past.”
Assault weapons were banned under the Federal Assault Weapons Ban from 1994 to 2004, but it was not renewed. President Obama has stated multiple times he would support its reintroduction.
“I wrote that bill. My office wrote that bill. It went through. It wasn’t amended. It went through the Senate, the House. It was signed by the president. And it was the law for 10 years. I think what is unique about this is, it’s really just one class of gun, the assault weapon. The assault weapon is developed for military purposes, to kill in close combat. And it doesn’t belong in the streets of our cities. And it doesn’t belong where it can be picked up easily by a grievance killer, who can walk into a workplace, a mall, a theater, and now an elementary school and kill large numbers.”
Some members of the discussion however, don’t necessarily agree that banning even just certain types of weapons is the solution.
“The Congress, when it enacted that [assault weapons] ban, also ordered that a formal study be done of the results of it.” said adjunct professor of constitutional law at the University of Denver David Kopel. “The study was performed by the Urban Institute, a very well-respected, somewhat left-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C., and the Urban Institute reported that it had no effect on homicide rates. There was no statistically significant benefit in terms of saving lives.”
“Forty percent of all gun sales in our nation aren’t subject to background checks,” says Dan Gross of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, “which means that convicted felons, domestic abusers, the dangerously mentally ill can buy guns without any questions asked. A Frank Luntz poll showed that 74% of NRA members support a solution like that.”
“Aside from these horrific mass tragedies, there are 32 murders that happen every day in our country. How can we prevent most of them? I do happen to think that doing something about assault weapons is an important step in that direction.”
