Within the wake of two mass shootings in California, President Joe Biden on Tuesday once more known as on Congress to go an assault weapons ban, only a few months after he signed into legislation bipartisan gun management laws that fell wanting banning the lethal weapons.
On Saturday evening, a gunman opened fireplace at a dance corridor in Monterey Park, Calif., killing 11 and wounding a number of others. And on Monday, seven folks had been killed in two associated shootings in Half Moon Bay in Northern California.
The Los Angeles County sheriff recognized the weapon used within the Monterey Park mass capturing as a semiautomatic MAC-10 assault weapon, however an outline of the gun utilized by the Half Moon Bay shooter has been described solely usually as a semiautomatic handgun.
The White Home has lengthy been intent on displaying it's severe about strengthening gun management legal guidelines. Vice President Kamala Harris is touring to Monterey Park on Wednesday, and Mr. Biden in December attended a vigil for gun violence victims.
Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy on Monday launched a pair of gun management payments: the primary would ban assault weapon gross sales, and the opposite would elevate the age to purchase an assault weapon to 21. Democratic Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island is predicted to introduce a companion invoice to the assault weapons ban within the Home, based on Feinstein's workplace.
Addressing Democratic congressional leaders on Tuesday, Mr. Biden mentioned, "I'm asking you all to ship that to my desk as shortly as you may. It is actually wanted badly."
Following mass shootings final yr in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, 10 Republican senators joined each Senate Democrat and the Democratic-led Home in voting to go gun management laws that enhanced background checks for gun consumers below 21 years of age and closed the so-called "boyfriend loophole" to forestall convicted home abusers from buying a firearm for 5 years. Mr. Biden shortly signed the invoice into legislation.
However Mr. Biden wish to see laws that goes additional, a brand new assault weapons ban, just like the 1994 legislation that he helped go as a senator. It prohibited over a dozen assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, and it expired in 2004.
In July 2022, the Democratic-led Home handed the same ban. Two Republicans joined with nearly all of Democrats to vote for the invoice, whereas 5 Democrats voted towards it. However the laws was by no means thought-about within the Senate, the place 60 votes are wanted to carry a invoice to the ground for a vote. On the time, Democrats had solely 50 seats within the Senate.
Feinstein's present invoice faces the identical impediment, since Democrats at the moment have solely 51 seats within the Senate.
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, one of many 10 Republicans who labored with Democrats to go the bipartisan gun laws final summer season, mentioned Tuesday that "there aren't sufficient votes within the Senate for an assault weapons ban." And there aren't sufficient votes within the Home both, now that Republicans are within the majority.
Alan He and Camille Knox contributed to this report.