The House on Friday passed a new "Assault Weapon Ban" which targets semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines that have two or more cosmetic features. The bill also bans semi-automatic shotguns with a detachable or fixed “ammunition feeding device that has the capacity to accept more than 5 rounds.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said reinstating the ban on assault weapons is a “long overdue step to get deadly weapons off our streets.” She referenced the 1994 federal assault weapon ban, sponsored by then Sen. Joe Biden, and claimed the ban decreased violence by those semi-automatic rifles with certain cosmetic features.
The final vote was 217 to 213.
Pelosi "made backroom deals in the past 24 hours in order to fix her gun-control public relations failure this week. House Democrats rammed through this bill to appeal to the liberal base who wanted to 'do something' — anything — after the recent mass shootings and before the upcoming midterm elections," investigative journalist Emily Post noted in a July 29 substack.com post.
On two occasions during floor debate on Friday, Pelosi said the new ban on assault weapons is about “putting people above politics.”
"She was doing the opposite," Miller noted.
North Carolina Republican Rep. Richard Hudson said of the 1994 assault weapons ban: “This ban did not stop violent crime or prevent heart-wrenching crimes like Columbine. A so-called assault weapon ban does not work. But what it does is take away your rights and leave you vulnerable. The simple truth is criminals don’t follow the laws….. But when you criminalize guns, only criminals have guns.”
New York Democrat Rep. Jerry Nadler said that the assault weapon ban was necessary because “mass shootings have increased exponentially.”
Pelosi also insisted that mass shootings have increased since the 1994 ban expired in 2004.
Both are "factually incorrect," Miller noted, citing data from the Department of Justice which shows that fewer than 100 people of the 20,000 killed every year by firearms are victims of a mass shooting.
There have been a total of 55 mass shootings and 516 victims in the past 10 years. Here is year by year:
2012 - 6 mass shootings, 63 victims
2013 - 5 mass shootings, 31 victims
2014 - 3 mass shootings, 14 victims
2014 - 5 mass shootings, 31 victims
2015 - 5 mass shootings, 43 victims
2016 - 5 mass shootings, 70 victims
2017 - 7 mass shootings, 106 victims (due to the horrific Las Vegas incident)
2018 - 9 mass shootings, 72 victims
2019 - 7 mass shootings, 65 victims
2020 - 2 mass shootings, 9 victims
2021 - 6 mass shootings, 43 victims
“For years, the Democrats told us, ‘We’re not coming for your guns.’ Oh yes, they are,” Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan said during the floor debate on Friday.
Jordan explained that the rifles banned by the Democrats' legislation are in common use, meaning the bill wouldn’t stand up in court because the new Supreme Court ruling in Bruen says gun-control laws are only constitutional if the lawmakers can show there is an analogy to a law at the time of the founding of the country.
Rep. Chip Roy also said the rifles are in common use and this bill is a gun grab and “everyone knows it.”
“This legislation is as dangerous as it is revealing of the contempt for which the House Democrats hold for the Constitution and the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Larry Keane, the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s lobbyist and lawyer. “Chairman Jerrold Nadler admitted during debate in his committee that he didn’t care the legislation was unconstitutional and defied Supreme Court precedent.”
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